UNBELIEVABLE DATA MINING
After watching the Data Brokers video, I have come to realize the excessive amount of power that is held among the company we rely on and trust today. As mentioned in the video, a very small percentage of consumer know about the information that is being collected about them when they surf they internet from site to site and through their smartphones that track our every moment through location on a daily basis. During my time in high school i began to realize when downloading simple gaming apps or social media apps when they were emerging as the new big thing, that a small message would appear before the initial installment stating that this app will have access to your private information such as gps, photo gallery, and contact lists. I consulted friends after awhile to see what their opinions were on the matter and they brushed it off saying that this is just for adding friends faster or for uploading pictures directly from your phone onto your game easier, but i had a feeling that this was not the case. This can give the wrong impression of who someone may actually seem to be or could lead to stalking issue not only from companies, but from potential hackers as well. Abusing such power can very much lead to the lost of trust from a mass number of consumers and create a type of fear that we are constantly being watched 24/7 (which we already are, but people fail to realize the extent of the problem). Like the chairman and CEO of Epsilon said, “People fail to realize that the internet is one big advertising and marketing tool” and it hides behind sites who has multiple companies that are in our default browsers extracting data based on the sites we have been. Its somewhat terrifying to know that we are not only being watched by our own government, but as well as multiple companies as well. This needs to come to a halt and information that we are willing to give out should be enough for companies trying to reach their potential target markets.
As for the internet itself, business models use this to surveillance user or consumers through their highly effective advertisements. As a great example in my case of being a gamer, everywhere I go whether it be YouTube, Instagram, or online TV streaming sites there is an advertisement for mobile games or console games in the coming months. This is all thanks to the past games i may have downloaded or the sites such as Game Stop where I go to purchase games may have had an effective impact of many these companies. These business use this to their advantage by continually throwing the type of ads a specific user may have interest in to lead them to collect more data on what type of person you might be. Companies call it effective advertising, but I like to call it stalking.