Internet is watching
Once you’ve lost your privacy, you realize you’ve lost something extremely valuable. It’s proven that the widespread creation and spread of data run the Internet. Such a spread of data has both positive and negative implications. Be wary of what good ideas and positive outcomes are extinguished in the pursuit to stomp out the negative ones. Having worked in the advertising industry for a while, it’s mind-boggling to discover the power of widespread data on the Internet. Data privacy is a broader topic which deals with the relationship between the collection and distribution of data, technology, and privacy laws. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy that involves the right to personal privacy. It relates to how to store, use, share, and show information about oneself on the Internet.
As a matter of fact, with the boom of data exchange on the internet and the breakthrough of big data technologies, unimaginable data is used every day around the internet to innovate and rubusinesses. This data is primarily of two kinds, personally identifiable information (PII) or not PII. While PII deals with information that either uniquely identifies you, say for example, through a combination of age and physical address. The latter uses the site visitor’s behavior on a website. Both kinds of data use can be dealt with Awareness and Action.
Firstly, Being aware of your internet data is the first step in protecting your internet data. The information has to be free to continue to provide you better user experiences. You bought a smart TV, cut the cable cord and now want to use TV service with minimal effort. You were sold when you learned about services from Netflix. It took you a minute to fill a small registration form to activate the account by confirming your age, adding name, email, credit card information, and selecting some interests. You started watching one of the latest released, binge-watched the whole series of a reality show over the weekend. The next time you turned on Netflix, you were shown another movie recommendation gluing you to TV for the next 3 hours. Now that Netflix is watching your eyeballs, you too are in love with the user experience of getting recommended to keep you entertained as you would have liked. Like any business, Netflix wants its users to have high stickiness to their service, which they ensure by learning about their users through the data they provide in the registration form, content being browsed, skipped, binge-watched, users behavior and interests on the internet, etc. The last part about Netflix being aware of users’ internet behavior is through the permissions you probably gave to it or to some other service. That makes a point that you should always read the privacy policy and be aware of what data you are sharing, how it will be used etc. As an illustration, the NYT’s privacy team examined a test to represent that everything you do online is logged in obscene detail and users have no privacy.
Along the same lines, a much-respected organization Microsoft who is also an advertising player was in talks to buy TikTok, an infamous half a billion user, short video creating app. The reason for the buy is access to more data that allows Microsoft to scale and correct their blind spots and even influence how their software and services are developed inside the company to accustom the new force of young users. The point is that businesses may continue to find alternatives to use data for their benefit but because they need to rely on certain regulations, there is a need to adhere to policies by asking user consent.
Now that you are aware of your data, you can game your Internet privacy to the next level by taking an action. So, when you decided to cover yourself with privacy champion products and services, you bought yourself a shiny new iPhone. But will you feel duped when you discover that Apple tracks your data to target you for advertising? You can take action to limit the ad targeting on the device using simple steps in the privacy settings of your iPhone.
iPhone iOS 14 update
To summarize, Privacy regulation bodies are making sure those users are always informed through giving an option for user consent. User consent is a powerful choice given to users to acknowledge the data policy and opt-in or out of data sharing as per their willingness to address their tracking on the internet. While user’s data privacy is a wider concept, if you are too concerned about privacy, you can limit the tracking of your data on the internet with just a few options.
- Use a private browser window which doesn’t store your information,
- Use tools that let you create a secure connection to access the internet, making you unreachable to track.
- When visiting a website, spare a minute to read through the data privacy policy and choose what works best for you.
- You can also change your social network account privacy settings, download, and delete the data these networks have about you.
- Frequently delete your browser data, and
- Use apps with data policies you are comfortable with.
There is no question that Internet laws and regulations will continue to evolve to limit the tracking of user’s data, being aware, and taking timely action would make you less worried about your internet Privacy. Or the easiest thing to do is nothing at all and keep enjoying the advertising reminders about the Dior bag you have been eyeing for so long. Mind you, the Internet is watching.
