Advertisers use your personal information in an effort to target their marketing and gain your attention when you least expect it. Popular websites such as Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, and even Booking.com are collecting your data, oftentimes without your knowledge or level-headed consent, while they trade your personal information for monetary gain. These same companies will tell you that they need your permission to share your data to provide you with a better experience in exchange for allowing you to view the entertainment you seek.
Using basic coyokies and pixels, many smaller websites are also partaking in this practice. With the information collected while you’re using their websites, they send it to big-name companies such as Facebook and Google where your personal data is further harvested and analyzed. Using a torrent can leave you susceptible, protect yourself with The PirateBay proxy.
Though most people hardly think twice about providing their personal information for the sake of entertainment, how big corporations use your data to further predict what you’ll do in the future is downright eerie. Of course, their ability to make commonplace predictions about your behavioral patterns did not take place overnight. In fact, this technology uses your data and finds common ground with millions of other users online to build a ‘profile’ on you.
Knowing what next steps you’ll likely take thanks to your profile will give companies a huge competitive edge when displaying ads for products or services you may have an interest in. In fact, these predictions are often one step ahead of you showing products you didn’t even know you wanted or needed in your life! Unfortunately, what many people ignore is that this invasive level of predictability is also a recipe for disaster in the near future.
In example, a company may find out through your Facebook status that you’re currently in a committed relationship. They may consider you high-risk for cheating, therefore, your targeted ads will show you websites for dating. Though this example may seem far-fetched, the reality is that this technology will only advance in the years to come. Facebook is still fairly young, which is why you need to consider the dangers of your actions 10 or 20 years down the line.
Knowing this, does it seem far-fetched that perhaps this technology becomes invasive enough to accuse people of murder? Think of a future where you may have a crime pinned on you simply because you fit an algorithm’s profile!