Did you get “Dressed” today？
Whether social platforms will read users’ dialogue information and other content for the purpose of supervision, and whether such content is at risk of disclosure and exposure？How much information do social platforms have about their users? What kind of information? How?
From a business perspective, what do you think can be used to monetize users’ private information?
The simple business model includes the privacy of “browsing and clicking on products and services” in the platform. According to such privacy information, intelligent recommendation algorithm is used to sell accurate advertisements. The business model doesn’t actually give away privacy, it just uses it to recommend ads to you.
Someone said that he was going to hold a wedding, and then WeChat started to push Wedding stores. He discussed the bag of a certain brand with colleagues, and it pushed the advertisement of the brand on Moments the next day.
There is also a suspicion that it is not just WeChat that is listening to us, but other software that is listening to us.
According to the Tencent WeChat team:
“Chat content belongs to users’ communication secrets and personal privacy. WeChat will not monitor users’ chat records, and Tencent will not push advertisements through monitoring users’ chat records.”
Is WeChat listening to users’ chats?
This is actually the push mechanism of Internet advertising, or precision marketing. The principle is big data computing. It is realized through cookies on PC and unique identification code on mobile phones.
When you think WeChat is monitoring you, it is actually an algorithm analyzing you. Instead of guessing your preferences, the algorithm will find people who are similar to you and push their browsing and spending records to you, so as to achieve a kind of “precision” effect. Sometimes, big data and algorithms know you better than you do. For example, when an angry father scolded Target for sending coupons for baby products to his 16-year-old daughter, staff apologized, however, he found out that his daughter was pregnant after two months.
Is this an invasion of privacy?
In fact, Internet companies can only use this content with your consent, right after you install the software, when you check the “I read and consent” box at the end of the privacy agreement, though you may not have looked closely. China’s Cyber Security Law also stipulates that network operators must not disclose, tamper with or damage the personal information they have collected, or provide personal information to others without the consent of those who have been collected.
In the era of big data, how we protect our information and privacy is a very serious and thought-provoking problem. I think that in the current network environment, the answer to this question is not very comprehensive, but data protection may also be a new business opportunity in the future.
