3rd side to ‘Free wifi’
As I summarized in the previous article that “There are no free lunches in this world and everything comes with charges attached”, this article is another classic example for this statement.
So how free is this free Wi-Fi exactly?
I am pretty sure that 99% of people before connecting to a free Wi-Fi don’t read the privacy agreement and just click ‘I accept’ without realizing what they actually are accepting.
If you carefully read the privacy agreement, then you will notice that you have given all the access to your device and let their cookies track and collect your browsing data.
Should data tracking be your concern?
In bold words YES IT SHOULD BE! In fact, it should be one of your major concerns.
Why?
All the information about you, on you is collected and given a meaning. It’s called ‘link data’. It basically means giving meaning to the small pieces of data and linking it all together. Once the data is linked together then your virtual profile is created and literally a program can predict and even influence your decisions.
The information regarding the transactions you carry out on your mobile, the pages you access, the files you load, the music you listen to, the persons you chat with (and the reasons behind all these) have a monetary value and is actually a valuable asset in the modern world.
How?
For example, when you have visited any online shopping portal and looked for buying a laptop and then left that portal without purchasing it. After a while when you open every app on your mobile starts showing you ads about different laptops from various sellers! Ever wondered why this happens. Because your need for buying a laptop has been notified to all the laptop sellers by that portal. This is only a good side to it.
The Internet knows all your good and bad sides and forgets almost nothing. Regardless of the pages you access and the opinions you express — web pages, Blogs, communities, YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Tinder, Porn sites etc. — you leave traces everywhere. Suddenly, sexual preferences, medical situations, hate tirades aimed at their superiors or less advantageous photographs become public and anyone with basic knowledge of how to access it can access it.
Every future employer is grateful for as many unaltered information as possible on a new candidate for a job position, which is why the human resources managers have already been using for a while now the information offered by the Internet when it comes to a possible hiring.
It’s not only the private sector but also the state is interested in your data. They monitor your online and offline behavior to predict if you will be the cause for a problem for their rule or to anybody else.
Sadly, it doesn’t stop there. The cookies that you have accepted while agreeing to the privacy agreement keep collecting the data like your locations, your food preferences, your sexual preferences etc., even when you are disconnected from that particular Wi-Fi hotspot and keep feeding more information about you to the program. All this information is sold for billions of dollars to potential third-party buyers who are unknown to you.
You in the end are happy by getting to use free Wi-Fi for hour or two while someone already made a fortune off your data.
Summary……
If you ever come across anything that is free except for “unconditional mother’s love”, then always keep in mind that there is something really big and fishy going on in the background. So, put your education to use, take time to analyze the situation and only then opt in.
Next article is the most awaited and most requested one “3rd side to ‘we were on a break’ thing from Friends”
Stay tuned and keep followin my blog for updates.
