TechTalks: Monetization of Data Without Consent or Reward
Are web users treated as lab rats or as piggy banks? Or maybe both?
💡 This article is reprinted here from Iagon corporate blog.
In the era of digital transformation, data seems to be the new oil. It is extracted by the tech giants, refined with analytical tools, and transformed into profits. And that is a serious reason for concern. Are we, as web users, aware of how our data is used? And if we did, could we do anything about it? At Iagon, we believe your data should remain yours and yours only.
Getting robbed of your data
It’s not a secret that major centralized platforms need our private data to function properly. It might be argued that they provide us with free services and apps in return, but are those benefits really free? They tend to preoccupy us more and more, grabbing our attention and drawing us to the screens of smartphones and computers. And as we continue to spend more hours on Facebook or Twitter, shopping on Amazon, or just letting Google do things for us, these companies amass considerable amounts of our behavioral data. But that’s all for our benefit, right? Well, the answer is not that obvious.
Having learned our behavior, major platforms seem to improve the user experience, helping us quickly and easily find things we’re looking for or share our fancy pictures with our friends. This comes at a price, however. Algorithms responsible for content suggestions can influence consumer decisions, manipulate users toward certain political movements, lead to confirmation bias, etc.
We as web users don’t even know the real value of all that data. The big tech companies do, however, and they put that knowledge into practice to make profits. Using users’ stored photos for commercial purposes, analyzing their conversations and, consequently, force-feeding them with ads for affiliated sellers, selling personal information to third parties, influencing online behavior — possible scenarios are endless.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, users have no control over the harvested data. And major players aren’t really interested in revealing how they handle it or who is granted access to it. For example, law enforcement agencies or other government institutions may demand that users’ confidential information is disclosed and use it for spying on citizens.
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