Obviously sensitive information like addresses, credit cards, etc. should be protected, but I don’t understand why it’s considered a big deal when companies sell other data? Don’t they just sell things like how much time you spent staring at a picture before you scrolled?
In: Technology
>Don’t they just sell things like how much time you spent staring at a picture before you scrolled?
While “looked at picture for 12 minutes” isn’t sensitive, correlation might make it.
“Looked at picture of neighbors wife for 12 minutes”. “Looked at picture of nude model of same sex for 12 minutes” might be enough data to blackmail someone under many governments and social norms in some (or sadly, many) circles.
And that’s without starting to combine these datasets with other sources.
People tend to say the same about location data – why do I care that someone knows where I am? Until you start looking at “anonymous” data where you can clearly see people having affairs (which isn’t illegal, but a prime case for blackmailing someone), then returning to their home. If you have data that shows that “subject 48282 leaves this location every morning at 07:30” – and then “they travel to this location every morning”. Congratulations, you now know exactly who subject 48282 is, even without visiting any location and spying a bit.
What if your employeer knows that you suddenly went to a competitor’s office for 30 minutes one day because of a job interview. The coordinate in itself isn’t sensitive, but combined with knowing that you work for Company A and the coordinate is company B can make it sensitive (to you, at least).
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