The Dark Side of Big Data
With the significant domestication of new media it has become arguably impossible to avoid falling victim to big data. Technology is everywhere. In a modern world, it is essential for global communication via social media, as well as everyday tasks such as Internet research, watching television and even grocery shopping. However, to commercial entities, these daily practices arenât as simple as they seem. For companies such as Nielsen SocialGuide and BlueFin Labs, which have recently been purchased by Twitter, these practices are a means of collecting data, tracking consumers and placing them into databases (Woodford et. al, 2013: Gray, 2014). Big data provides companies with a new way of thinking, enabling them to turn data into action (Woodford, 2014). The following post will discuss the dark side of big data, and in particular its invasion of our privacy as consumers and participators in social media.
An average personâs online data is worth around 10 cents to marketers. However, add pregnancy to the equation and that value jumps to $1.50 (Gray, 2014). American mother Janet Vertesi attempted to keep her entire pregnancy hidden from the Internet. The aim of this experiment was to avoid being flagged as an expecting mother, being tracked and exposed to an excessive amount of advertisement for baby products. However, this process was not as simple as signing off social media. Although keeping off social media ruled out cookies, bots and other online data collectors, in order to keep her pregnancy under wraps she and her husband avoided all use of technology. This included credit card use to ensure companies were not able to access or sell her purchase history information (Gray, 2014). All these efforts made to preserve the privacy of her pregnancy. In reflection of her experiences avoiding technology and big data, Vertesi said, âtechnologies are making us produce data in a particular way, and to opt out isnât really an optionâŠ.in certain situations it is critical to be able to opt outâ (Gray, 2014).
This experiment highlights just how easy it is for corporate bodies to get their hands on our information and use it for marketing and advertising purposes. According to the Economist (2012), over 1800000 people can easily access your information under Facebookâs default privacy settings. Despite having privacy measures and policies in place, modern users of Web 2.0 are left vulnerable by lengthy and confusing Internet privacy policies. To make matters worse 72% of these polices still allow third parties to track internet activity (The Economist, 2012). Based on these statistics alone it is clear that in order to keep our private information private we must be extremely conscious of the ways in which we chose to participate in social media.
Big data does indeed present a threat to the privacy of new media users. However, when it comes to social media we must consider who the onus is on to keep our information private. Even greater, if we are really that threatened by big data invading our privacy on social media then perhaps we shouldnât be posting our private details in the first place.
 REFERENCES
Gray, S. (2014). One womanâs attempt to hide her pregnancy from big data â itâs more difficult than youâd expect. Retrieved May 11, 2014 From http://www.salon.com/2014/04/28/one_womans_attempt_to_hide_her_pregnancy_from_big_data/Â
The Economist. (2012). The Dark Side of Big Data. Retrieved May 11, 2014 From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raJOkguPrH4
Woodford, Darryl, Katie Prowd and Axel Bruns. 2013. âTelemetrics: Towards Measuring Social Media Engagement with Television.â
Woodford, Darryl. 2014. Week 9 â New Media, Big Data and Telemetrics (guest lecture by Darryl Woodford). Retrieved from: http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp