Who is paying for all the free stuff?
Part 3: Standing naked in the mob
When you sit on our computer or open up your mobile screen to browse internet, you do it almost as an expression of your individuality and privacy. You feel free of fear of being watched and judged as long as no one is standing over your shoulders.
Want to cook something new, Had a breakup and need to cope with it, Some health issue you need to understand better, That weird feature in the groin area you are not completely sure of , Your sexual curiosities— Just search it on the Internet
But what if you knew there are thousands of eyes on the Internet, watching your every move, every keypress and every mouse click. would you feel the same freedom? If that sounds like an exaggeration to you then you are blissfully ignorant to the reality.
These thousands of eyes are called Data Brokers, of which Google’s DoubleClick is one. They collect, profile and sell your browsing data to any one who can pay. While these companies work under the hoods of the internet, they are not hard to observe. You can install Ghostery or Disconnect to your web browser and see how many of these trackers are chasing you on every site you visit.
Ostensibly they do this without your identification. Except for DoubleClick, no one has your google account so they cant really pin point you… or can they?
It is surprising to know how little information one needs to pin point any individual. Take for example, if a populous country like India has about 30K internet users per pin code and if I know your age and gender, I can narrow you down to 5 people. If I have additional information like your laptop or mobile make etc, it is not very difficult to identify you precisely.
Data brokers, however, collect much more than just the basic information. How much more? That is a real surprise!
Here are a few ways in which these companies collect your data:
- We all are familiar with cookies (the web ones of course). What you might not be aware of is something called third party cookie that are typically stored on your browser by domains other than the one you are visiting. Many browsers do try their best to delete these cookies, however since the survival of data brokers depend on data poaching they have invented many techniques with benign sounding names such as respawning cookies, Flash cookies, entity tags (Etags) and canvas fingerprinting to reconstruct these cookies. These cookies are like tiny bits of shit that stick to the commode even after several flushes.
- Web-Beacons: these are relatively new things. They are often transparent graphic image, usually no larger than 1pixel x 1pixel, that is placed on a Web site or in an email that is used to monitor the behavior of the user visiting the Web site or sending the email.
- Many sites allow these brokers to track their users and collect information like their preferences, so when you sign up for an online freebee by filling up a form with your name, Date of birth and email, the information is sent to a broker and your anonymity goes for a toss. Even the most benign site like New York Times or The Hindu has at least a dozen trackers watching you, let alone the more spurious sites.
- Many free mobile apps also sell their users data to the brokers. If you have installed apps like free torch, free measuring scale, free widgets etc or free games like angry bird, they are selling you out by sharing information like location, device information and sometime even your contacts information with third party brokers.
For instance take UC browser, a web browsing app for smartphones. Before installing, it requires permissions to access the following details: Device & app history, Identity, Contacts, Location, SMS, Phone, Storage, Camera, Microphone, WiFi connection information, Device ID and call information plus a bunch of permissions under the name “Others”. One might wonder, why does a web browser need informations about my contacts and SMS among other things. Another popular app called Flashlight, which should perform only one task — controlling my phones flash as torch, needs permissions for my Photos, Media, Files and Location. What for? - Things turn more interesting when you start using “smart” devices. These devices have the capability to connect through internet and send your data to their manufacturers servers in the name of market research. Your smart refrigerator, Smart Watch, Smart speakers like Alexa, Smart cameras and pretty much anything which is smart in digital sense is spying on you. Smart vacuum cleaners are known to sell your house layout and your in-house activities to the brokers, so even your personal space isn't really personal.
In March 2017, Wikileaks exposed a program called “Weeping Angel” which was used to spy on people using their smart TVs. While you netflix-and-chill, someone might be netflix-and-chilling on you.
Even sex toys have been found to collect data like the duration of usage and temperature graphs of your body, and send it across to data brokers. Imagine, some server sitting in a remote location knowing if your partner is faking it better than you do.
If that sounds scary, that’s because it is!
If you are wondering how can they do that without asking for your permission, you’ll be surprised to know that they actually did — but of course with a small privacy policy note buried under the 50 pages of terms and conditions of usage that you agreed upon, when you signed up. Try to read the privacy policy of any online service for once and if you can read between the lines, you’ll find the devil there.
Facebook, Ad brokers, marketing companies, PR agencies and many more such entities buys this data and combines all of it to chart your footprints not just on internet but in real world as well.
The extent of the breach of privacy is alarming. And that itself should be a cause of concern for most of us. But if you are one of those who does not mind being naked in the crowd, you may ask… so what? What can they really do with all my data? I am a mere mortal, why should my privacy matter so much?
Glad you asked. But before answering the question let me take a detour to our favorite time pass…
Social Network
Social network is a good way to share our life events with friends and family. A platform like facebook is amazing when you look at its complexity and appreciate how easy it makes for you to be connected with your circle.
Just like google, facebook has its own ways to profile its users. Except that in this case, the data is much more interactive. Facebook records your interaction with friends and family, the ads, pages you like and the suggested posts that are going viral on your circle. It also gathers data from every site that has the like or share buttons, and it tracks you even if you don’t click the button. Facebook own whatsapp which shares its users data with the parent company as well. Up until recently, whatsapp offered its user the option to switch off data sharing with Facebook, but that option is gone now.
And of course facebook buys a lot of your data from… you guessed it! Data brokers. Facebook is very unique in the sense that it not only knows a lot about you, but it also knows who are your friends, and it knows a lot about them as well.
About 30% of all information you get from facebook is not directly related to your circle and about 20% are sponsored ads. So the 50% space that is left on your wall has to be shared by the stories from your friend circle. At any given time, the number of stories from your circle including the pages you like, your friends likes, comments and posts etc, can run into thousands. You can imagine what an overload of stories that can cause. Consequently every story you write on facebook has to pass the test of facebooks algorithm to be visible to your intended audience. That is how the more important stories, like a friends wedding or new born baby, reach more people than the cup of coffee you clicked this evening. It works well but of course… algorithms have their own minds!
These algorithms are Artificially Intelligent, and unlike human mind they have unlimited memory. The algorithms were designed to maximize the amount of interaction amongst the users of the platform, and they have learned to succeed in their quest using all the data at their disposal, which by now I hope I am able to impress, is a lot.
In fact all the AI that has been developed in past 10 years or so, is just to study humans and extract every drop of their attention towards sponsored content. In doing so, intentionally and partly unintentionally, the algorithms have invented some serious hacks into human mind. And the result is:
- Emotional hacking and Degrading content.
- Behavior modification and control.
I will discuss a these aspects of the AI algorithms in the next article.
In the book, Brave New World written in 1931, Aldous Huxley says:
The questions that we must ask ourselves is:
Whether Aldous Huxley was right 90 years ahead of his time?
Whether our love for freeloading leading us to a dystopic future?
The answer probably is … yes.
But if we want to avoid it, the solution too lies in the question itself!
Thanks for reading.
If you like this article, please give it a few claps.
Stay tuned for part 4 of this article on Emotional hacking and Degrading content quality.
If there is some aspect of online data privacy that you want me to cover in this series, please feel free to suggest in the comment box.
References:
1. A brilliant documentary by 60 minutes on Data Brokers.
2. Ted talk by Madhumita Murgia on how data brokers are selling our privacy.
3. Mind blowing talk by Zeynep Tufekci about the dystopia we are creating to make people click ads.
About me
I am an entrepreneur trying to solve cross-border e-commerce challenges in India with technological innovations as CEO@Miracas.
Prior to that, I have been a corporate citizen for more than 10 years working in Semiconductor Industry.
Little more about me on my personal website
