The society we live in at the moment feels like less of a private one as the time progresses. Privacy has become a very heated topic. All the technological advances that mankind have created to connect the world with each other have become vulnerable to anyone who knows how to manipulate them. Sadly for us, the people who know how to do this are the hackers that are up to no good, multinational companies and the government. However, the power the government has to stop this differs from one country to another. Recently there has been more legislation passed by the U.S. government to make it easier for our personal data to be available to different companies/organizations. What is different now is that the data will be accumulated without the public’s consent and this is, in my opinion, the biggest red flag.
Privacy has been a controversial issue for a very long time. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we know more about how private (or not) our lives around technology can be. Snowden’s goal was to spark dialogue about this issue and it did for a moment but fast forward to today and people are barely even talking about it anymore. My issue isn’t about the government spying on me (or whatever they are actually doing). I can’t deny that it’s defintely scary. However, my issue is how the government pretty much gives companies and internet providers a free pass to access my information and to do whatever they please with it. What bothers me the most is that the reason why our data is so valuable is so that they can make more money.
We are just 1’s and 0’s to these people. They can know so much from our data. For example, they can make a profile of you which shows your gender, sexuality, income level, personality, whether your single or not. Hell they could even find out whether you’re cheating on your partner or not. With this information they will know which advertisements, videos, recommendations etc. to show you when you are online. This has been like this for some time and I hope you’ve already realized that. Lately it’s become very “in your face”. For example, I was researching for a desk I want to buy and immediately I started getting advertisements from different furniture stores and YouTube started recommending me to watch videos about “best desk setups”. I wouldn’t mind it if this process wasn’t that intrusive.
Honestly I shouldn’t be that outraged about this. Marketing companies have been doing this for years now, accumulating data from people so they know how to advertise to different target groups. The marketing companies adapted as time progressed and technological advances started taking over our daily lives. Anyone can argue that they are doing the same thing they’ve always done just that is happening online now. My question is, how much more do these companies want to know about us just so they can make more personalized advertisements and will we be informed of this? The U.S. government will decide this for you in the next few months so pick up your phone and call your reprentative. I guess it’s time to research VPN’s.
