The "Big Data" revolution and the exploitation of our "digital exhaust"
Somewhat buried in the business section of yesterday’s CRG was this interesting article: The NSA is watching, but so are Google and Facebook.
Surprise, surprise.
The brouhaha regarding Edward Snowden and the NSA surveillance scandal came up briefly as Bobblehead and I enjoyed a couple brews on my porch Saturday night. Bobblehead was annoyed that people have their panties in a bunch over something they assumed all along. “But that doesn’t make it right,” he added. I agree: just because the NSA is doing what we thought it was does not make it right. (I still have yet to voice my displeasure to my representatives. I doubt they will listen, but I may as well tell them I think it is totally uncool.) So what about this? What about Facebook and Google mining our profiles and personal messages for keywords, apps covertly collecting our precise GPS coordinates, and retailers tracking our movements inside or even past stores. What do we make of corporations cashing in on our “digital exhaust”?
Much as we suspected NSA spying, I think it is general knowledge that Facebook, Google, and the like are tracking our Internet habits and mining our profiles and messages to target ads. Facebook, I know for a fact, has been doing it for a long time. Back when I actually maintained my profile, I listed boxing as one of my interests. Sure enough, boxing-related ads always appeared when I logged in. Google has been doing it for just as long, if not longer. The ad space on Gmail always seems to reflect what is written in emails. If I or a friend write about writing, ads for writing lessons and whatnot appear. If I write about going to a specific place, related ads seem to pop up at some point — or when I visit another website where “Ads by Google” are featured (which, ironically, includes the webpage featuring the article).
Of course, we probably consent to this kind of data mining when we accept service agreements — which, we all know, none of us read. I could have signed away my first-born child to Apple when agreeing to iTunes’ terms of use. Service agreements seems to be a sticking point here, but the article mentions nothing of them. Perhaps we deserve a lot of blame when our digital exhausted is collected, mined, and sold. Perhaps we should not get upset over something we have permitted. Plus, we can choose not to use Google, Facebook, and the Internet in general — that is, if we want to become Luddites. (Having experienced the fervor and promise the Internet inspired in the nineties, the commercialization of the worldwide web seems downright immoral to me.)
We also do not have go to go malls or shopping districts, or at least take our phones there. (I guess the hijacking of Wi-Fi capabilities is another reason I should not get a smartphone. Though my current phone has Bluetooth…) However, the fact retailers are tracking the MAC address of our Wi-Fi capable devices (which can include our phones, tablets, and laptops) and tracking our movements seems pretty extreme. Again, though, most malls and shopping areas are privately owned and we agree to their terms of service when we enter.
Hmm… I seem to be writing myself into a hole more than anything else right now. But the fact is I am leery about this, especially when considering that my digital exhaust is “captured and exploited in a largely unregulated fashion. The information can be used by identity thieves, insurance companies, prospective employers or opponents in a civil lawsuit.” Also, as quoted by Ian Glazer, a vice president at Gartner Inc., “there is a fundamental problem with fairness, in the sense that I am generating all this data about me through my devices, and these organizations are harvesting it and making a profit off it.”
Perhaps that is the key to providing a check on the so-called “Big Data revolution”: ensuring that those of us generating the digital exhaust get a cut of the profits.
Self-confessed leaker Edward Snowden’s disclosures about domestic spying by the NSA have sparked a broad debate about whether the government is using sophisticated surveillance and data-mining techniques on its own citizens without sufficient oversight.
But information gathered and exploited by Internet giants such as Google, Amazon and Facebook — and traded by lesser-known data brokers such as Datalogix and Acxiom — can be more revealing than what the NSA can legally collect on most Americans. Few consumers understand what data are being shared, with whom, or how the information is being used.
Surprise, surprise.
The brouhaha regarding Edward Snowden and the NSA surveillance scandal came up briefly as Bobblehead and I enjoyed a couple brews on my porch Saturday night. Bobblehead was annoyed that people have their panties in a bunch over something they assumed all along. “But that doesn’t make it right,” he added. I agree: just because the NSA is doing what we thought it was does not make it right. (I still have yet to voice my displeasure to my representatives. I doubt they will listen, but I may as well tell them I think it is totally uncool.) So what about this? What about Facebook and Google mining our profiles and personal messages for keywords, apps covertly collecting our precise GPS coordinates, and retailers tracking our movements inside or even past stores. What do we make of corporations cashing in on our “digital exhaust”?
Much as we suspected NSA spying, I think it is general knowledge that Facebook, Google, and the like are tracking our Internet habits and mining our profiles and messages to target ads. Facebook, I know for a fact, has been doing it for a long time. Back when I actually maintained my profile, I listed boxing as one of my interests. Sure enough, boxing-related ads always appeared when I logged in. Google has been doing it for just as long, if not longer. The ad space on Gmail always seems to reflect what is written in emails. If I or a friend write about writing, ads for writing lessons and whatnot appear. If I write about going to a specific place, related ads seem to pop up at some point — or when I visit another website where “Ads by Google” are featured (which, ironically, includes the webpage featuring the article).
Of course, we probably consent to this kind of data mining when we accept service agreements — which, we all know, none of us read. I could have signed away my first-born child to Apple when agreeing to iTunes’ terms of use. Service agreements seems to be a sticking point here, but the article mentions nothing of them. Perhaps we deserve a lot of blame when our digital exhausted is collected, mined, and sold. Perhaps we should not get upset over something we have permitted. Plus, we can choose not to use Google, Facebook, and the Internet in general — that is, if we want to become Luddites. (Having experienced the fervor and promise the Internet inspired in the nineties, the commercialization of the worldwide web seems downright immoral to me.)
We also do not have go to go malls or shopping districts, or at least take our phones there. (I guess the hijacking of Wi-Fi capabilities is another reason I should not get a smartphone. Though my current phone has Bluetooth…) However, the fact retailers are tracking the MAC address of our Wi-Fi capable devices (which can include our phones, tablets, and laptops) and tracking our movements seems pretty extreme. Again, though, most malls and shopping areas are privately owned and we agree to their terms of service when we enter.
Hmm… I seem to be writing myself into a hole more than anything else right now. But the fact is I am leery about this, especially when considering that my digital exhaust is “captured and exploited in a largely unregulated fashion. The information can be used by identity thieves, insurance companies, prospective employers or opponents in a civil lawsuit.” Also, as quoted by Ian Glazer, a vice president at Gartner Inc., “there is a fundamental problem with fairness, in the sense that I am generating all this data about me through my devices, and these organizations are harvesting it and making a profit off it.”
Perhaps that is the key to providing a check on the so-called “Big Data revolution”: ensuring that those of us generating the digital exhaust get a cut of the profits.
