Today I watched a video about the "Bing" search engine and the profits Microsoft makes off the data collection their second rate search engine raises.
It serves as a reminder about the value of our private data: our likes, dislikes, search history, purchase history, location, age, gender, political leanings are all worth money to whoever tracks it.
Our search history is a key revenue source for Microsoft, Google and Facebook, which explains the costs and efforts they'll go to, in order to know you, to sell you.
If the product is "free", you are the product:
If you dont already know, Big Data is the fastest growing industry around. Knowing what consumers will buy, and when they'll want it, is priceless.
Advertisers will pay billions to accurately target audiences and with the data Microsoft, Google and legacy social media like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter collect, they can. This is how they make a fortune off us.
How Much is Privacy Worth?
- In the first quarter of 2015 Google made 17.3 billion dollars on ad revenue.
- Also in 2015 Facebook made 4 billion on ad revenue driven by our posts the attention they garner and the banner ads along the side.
Literally billions are made off what we do on the internet. What if we controlled that history?
Fortunately some companies are using blockchain to give control of our digital lives and indirectly our privacy to us.
Examples:
- Substratum (decentralized internet)
- Skycoin (decentralized internet)
- Basic Attention Token (Brave browser)
- Steemit
- Dtube
- Busy.org
- Dlive
- and many more
Traditional web companies track everything you do and sell it. These alternatives leave that data in your hands so you can do as you please: share or save, your choice.
My Advice: Don't play their game
The take away from this well made video, for me, was this: why do we play their game? We shouldn't.
Why do we give them the data so they can sell? Why do we surrender our personal life so freely and enable them to monetize us?
I for one am going to move as fully into decentralized alternatives as is possible.
Consequences of surrendering your data:
- They monetize you, selling all your privacy for their profits.
- They own your data: Your photos on Facebook are not your own.
- Gov't bodies or bad actors can steal your centralized data, aka, your identity.
- "Anything you say can and will be used against you." Your internet history might seem innocent today but what if tomorrow the gov't made your favourite thing illegal: Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
- As they monitor you, they focus what you see next. Convenient, but it puts you in an echo chamber where all you hear is what you asked to hear already.
And we do not surrender our data due to lack of options!
The point is we should value our privacy now, no matter who we are, or what we do. Why? Because our data, our digital life, is worth something and no one should be able to sell that except you!
Take your privacy seriously. Ask yourself each time you post if you want Big Brother knowing what you're doing.
Check out this video: PolyMatter - Why Bing is not a Failure
If you like the video give the guy a like, and maybe tell him about Steemit.