As people always say some big social media platform would collect our personal data and sell to marketing company clfor market analysis, how would I be taken advantage? Would they have different use on photos or locations as well?
In: Technology
Companies can do a lot with your data. If they know what you search for, what you like, where you go and so on then they can build a profile on you. With this they can predict if you’ll like a certain product, how you’ll react to what appears in your social media feed, etc, etc, etc. They use this to manipulate you, either to buy their products, vote for their candidates…………
You may think you’re a clever person but with them knowing so much about you they can manipulate you in ways you just wouldn’t expect or understand. A lot of money is poured into manipulating us. We’re all sheep.
Imagine a marketing firm wants to know what men between the ages of 15 and 25 want to buy?
How do they know?
Well, in the old days they used to do surveys do you remember those, in the malls?
Nowadays, they don’t need to do that because by data mining they can find out what people in that bracket want to buy.
Let’s say they pay Google to tell them what people are buying in that range and Google says “it looks like they want to buy this widget” well, how did they know that?
Essentially, they know that by looking at your browser history and your search patterns to determine your age and possibly more details about you. Even worse, they may ask you to provide that data to them like “hey tell us what your birthday is and we will send you a coupon” or something like that. They didn’t give you a gift, you just sold them information and that is how that data is used.
On the Internet, information is bought sold and treated like any other commodity and when you buy something you search for something you look for something you’re giving them data for them to advertise to you to try to sell you more things.
In the past, marketing companies would pay people to do studies and fill out questionnaires. Nothing crazy, but free food, cash, coupons.
Now, that stuff is sold to them not by the individual, but by the some data watershed/clearinghouse. In a sense, you are doing work and not getting paid for it. And someone else is getting paid for it.
It can also be used to limit or funnel you toward certain web searches, etc.
It can also possibly be collected and given to certain agencies without your consent and become easier to access.
It could also be potentially admissible in a case of law.
It’s not at thought crime, but let’s say you click three websites doing a school book report and now they have “triggered” some higher surveillance.
What if you are given a social score and that relates to freedom of movement or price for products as part of a gentle reward/control program.
It’s not about right now.
It’s about the cat being out of the bag and how it may affect the future and future developments of using said data.
Its a chain.
I.E, Facebook knows What you like, what you Want to buy, and how much you are willing to spend it.
Google is Very interested in the data, because they sell ad spaces, and by simply having these data, they can increase the effectiveness of ads.
Because how effective the google ads are compared to other ads, Companies are willing to pay BIG money to get on the program, which then Google capitalizes on.
In this chain, Facebook gets increased revenue from selling the data directly. Google gets increased revenue from more attractive ads. Companies gets increased revenue from more good/service sold because of ads. And you get fuk all except losing your privacy.
In business when all but 1 party in the transaction benefits from said transaction, we call that exploitation.
One big way companies use personal data is targeted product advertising. This is what shows up in your Facebook feed ads, google sidebar ads.
I am a company that wants to use personal data. Specifically demographic data. age, sex, location, and of course the really expensive one, interests. How do I do it? Well I go the Google or Facebook and enter a form. I want my website product link. I want it shown to everyone, 18-35, male and female, in San Francisco, who loves eating tacos. I want to advertise my taco truck only to those ppl, not to 50+, nor to Los Angeles, nor to those ppl that don’t like tacos.
What’s my price? Well fb sees my request and bids it against anyone else, 18-35, in San Francisco, tacos. I don’t compete against taco businesses in LA, or NYC but I do compete against taco bell National
But how does fb know if a user likes tacos? Easy. people love talking about tacos, showing pictures which I can use image recognition systems to identify as tacos, liking friends posts about tacos and the big one, friends who like talking about tacos more likely than not have friends who also talk about tacos.
Facebook takes my request. Money is exchanged. I just brought ads based on personal information.
It’s more than just advertising manipulation, etc… In the USA telecom companies sold real time location data which was used by bounty hunters to identify targets and kill them. Stalkers, sexual abusers, criminals, etc can also abuse real time location data – the bad actor potential is nearly endless.
Edit: typo
Another way fb and google sell personal data is compiled market data
Suppose I want to open an ice cream shop. I live in LA so that’s my target market. But LA is huge! Where do I put my shop so I can get customers? I have many possible locations, which ones will have the foot traffic I want so I can best choices and choose before I spend $50k to build out a store
Well….what’s my target market? Does everyone love ice cream? Well..yea. But who goes out for ice cream at the store? Well most ppl don’t get ice cream 9a in the morning. Most ppl do it after lunch or after dinner but not too late after dinner. Who goes out for ice cream? Well it’s primarily families. And specifically females with kids.
So google/fb, can you show me which areas in LA have best kinds of foot traffic of females 25-45 with kids under 15, between hours of 5-7p on school days or 12p-8p on weekends? More importantly, can you show those ppl my store ad in those neighborhoods?
It’s easier to target people you know more about for ads… no point wasting ad dollars marketing tampons to men. And you’ll get a better return on investment advertising BMWs to high income house holds. Geotarget (Target based on location) parkas in Chicago and flip flops in Florid. Data can also be narrowed down, marketing camping gear to people who like the outdoors. And there may even be less obvious segments that show up in data, like people who like Oprah and drive pick-up trucks buy lots of breakfast cereal…
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