Is Big Brother Watching?
It seems like a big topic in marketing lately centers around big data more specifically personal data from consumers. There is a lot of fear centered around what large companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook are doing with consumer data. Are they selling it to other companies? Using it for recommendations? Is the data even safe being left in the hands of the large conglomerates? As the world becomes ever more connected, our privacy is becoming compromised.
The book 1984 by George Orwell is something that I think people fear most. Big Brother was connected to every TV and radio. Big Brother was always watching, always aware of what people were doing and knew how to get a hold of you. Kind of like how the internet is today. Big companies know all your personal information, what you like, your buying behavior, your contacts, credit card information and much more. It’s a little scary especially with companies like Target and DoorDash experiencing data breaches exposing millions of consumers' personal information.
The thing we must recognize is that we willful give them our information. Those agreements that no one reads but we lie and said that we did spells out what these companies do with our data and how they will use it. It is the price we all pay to be connected but all is not terrible, these organizations have policies in place to protect consumers.
The truth is, companies like Amazon and Facebook don’t sell your data just access to you. Meaning, they sell to third party companies access to your timeline or updates about if you have seen their ads but not your name. According to one of Facebook’s spokespersons “Facebook’s business is valuable because it has so much personal data about its users. Selling that data to advertisers would significantly decrease Facebook’s value.”
If you use your Facebook account to login to other sites, it does grant some permissions to your data but all of this is something that you allow. Facebook does not tap into your microphone unless you give it permission when you’re using certain apps, it also doesn’t look at your phone records or contacts unless you give it the permission to. Even if you have given the company permission, you can turn the access off at any point by going to your settings and removing it from there.
So in a way, Big Brother is watching but it is all with the permission of the user. As long as big companies keep strict policies as to who has access to consumer data, keep that data secure so that people cannot hack into it to get access and ensure they only use the data with the permission of the user I have no problem with them collecting data.
The truth is we need this data to be taken because without it, how will you know what new shirt you should get or what show you should binge-watch next? These are things that we have become accustomed to and without we might as well be back to the olden days when you had to dial-up computers and watch a show when it premiered. How primitive.
