Is it my search history? My Instagram pictures? If so what exactly is useful about this to the people they sell to? I was thinking they might sell to scammers but idk
In: Technology
Most apps that sell your data are selling behavior and preference information about you to marketing companies. It’s useful for anyone who’s trying to convince you to take an action like buying a product. Most of it is harmless in the sense that if you watch fitness content, you’ll get ads for fitness products.
But the problem arises when it is used for social engineering. This happened several years ago with the Facebook – Cambridge analytica data scandal. Advertisers targeted people with the information that Facebook had collected to manipulate people to vote a certain way.
Some apps also collect a greater anonymous data, meaning they can see their users are made up of 60% this and 30% that, but they can’t pinpoint who exactly is in each group. Other apps do collect data tied to you specifically. These are the more dangerous ones as they build your profile with every action you perform and data collecting companies harvest data from many sources to build a very accurate model of who you are. If they know you are a sucker for animals, they can get you to take action by catering to that internal need you have. Perhaps to donate to a cause, or to join a group.
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