Matters of Personal Data
One of the major themes in conversation and legislation over the last few years has been pertaining to the personal data of Internet users. The major social media companies have not always been honest about what they do with our data, and that makes a lot of people uneasy and sometimes downright angry.
Two stories that I have seen recently:
- Presidential candidate Andrew Yang says companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook should pay us for our data
- New legislation would require search engines to disclose algorithms
The first story there is Yang (who I am actually a bit fond of) saying that since these companies use our data to make money (through selling advertising), we are entitled to some of that money and we should be paid. The second story is about how the Senate proposed a law that would require search engines to show what algorithms they are using with our data and also require a feature where a person could get search results returned that do not use their personal data. This would mean that there would be an option you could select that would prevent Google from using your personal data to tailor customized search results for you, everybody would just get the same results.
I have never been very attached to my personal data, and I think that this stuff has been blown way out of proportion. That said, I realize this is a matter of opinion and emotions do play a role, so I am not here thinking that I am definitely right about anything, I am just going to lay out how I feel about it.
Firstly, I think there is a misunderstanding on exactly how companies like Facebook stay in business. It does not cost money to use the service. Anybody with an Internet connection can use Facebook and Twitter. So how do they make money? Mostly, they sell advertisements. Companies know that millions of people are going to these websites every day, so there is a huge opportunity to market their products to those people, and that is worth quite a large amount of money to big companies. Except just floating a Tesla Car ad out there for any random person to see is not very efficient, they can do much better if they are able to target their advertisement at someone who might actually be in the position to buy a Tesla car. How do they do that? They use what they know about the website’s viewers to essentially predict the chances that each person is in that position. They can only do that because we volunteer information that helps them make predictions about us. That is the payment for the use of the service.

Secondly, I think there is another misunderstanding about exactly how these companies are using that data. When you find out that someone else has data about the websites you looked at, the stuff you bought and the places you’ve been to — that sounds creepy. But the “someone” in that situation is not a person, it’s a computer algorithm. That computer algorithm also has the same data on millions of other people, and almost all of the time it doesn’t favor any one person over another. It uses the data collectively to learn general things about different demographics of people, not individuals. As a general rule, unless you are rich, powerful, or a criminal - nobody really cares what you are doing. They just want to know what people like you are inclined to do. What do they do with that information? They send you advertisements that you are more likely to be interested in — which one could argue is a positive thing for you. So you’re getting services you like for free for just the penalty of getting advertisements that are more tailored to your actual interests — really doesn’t sound all that bad.
One last point concerning the Cambridge Analytica / Russian election interference thing…
Other countries have always “interfered” with our elections, and we always “interfere” with other elections — always. That’s not a new thing and it won’t stop, and it’s not even necessarily wrong. The way that people say Russia “interfered” with the 2016 election was by sending Facebook ads towards people they thought they could sway. These ads favored Donald Trump. Did they sway enough people to change the result of the election? Maybe, it’s impossible to know. Is that a huge problem? Most people would say yeah, but I would say emphatically no.
People act like other people telling you stuff to try to change your opinions and actions is new or something. You watch like three hours of commercials every day, but you don’t get mad at Tide for trying to make you buy their laundry detergent. You see tons of political ads online and on TV but don’t get mad at that. You don’t know for sure that these ads are definitely telling the truth — they are usually not. Is that on the people putting out the ads, or is that on you? If you buy a product or vote for a candidate because of a 30 second video you saw on Facebook, that’s on you and not on the person who put the ad in front of you. It would nice if we lived in a world where nobody ever tried to lie or mislead people, but that is just not happening so people should learn to be a bit more skeptical and think for themselves, rather than blaming all of their unhappiness on mysterious third parties.
If anybody wants to know where I go grocery shopping and what brand of diapers my daughter wears — just comment below and I’ll tell you!
