The more you give, the more they get
In recent times, media coverage of government websites being hacked, of cyber bullying, the release of state cables by Wikileaks, complaints over the social network, Facebook, and voicemail hacking by tabloid newspapers have shone the spotlight on the easy access to private and secret information.
Most of us, with nothing newsworthy to hide, share information freely, giving little thought to where that information goes and what agreements we’ve signed up to. Our online activity seems mundane to us, but it’s hugely aluable for marketing. Google makes $30bn (€22.4bn) a year, 95% of its revenue, from targeted advertising.
Steven O’Leary of Dublin-based internet monitoring company O’Leary Analytics, says users should be careful with personal information online but says a generation gap is at play. “A lot of people choose to share their information quite publicly and as a society we share an awful lot of information now. It’s just what we do. Especially the younger generation,” he says.
The scale of the information being analysed is staggering. It may sound like something from a William Gibson novel, but it is estimated that there are 900,000 new blog posts, 50m tweets, 60m Facebook status updates and 210bn emails every day. In 48 hours we put as much data online as existed in all of recorded history until 2003.
That is what we deliberately share. Phone GPS locations, websites visited, whom you’ve been e-mailing — the list goes on and on. If you have an Android smartphone, Google can work out where you live and where you work, based on the location of your phone by night and by day, logging that information in its location service under ‘home address’ and ‘work address’.
Google may know if you’re feeling sick. A demonstration of its aggregated search data for flu-like symptoms, published by Google flu trends, was shown to be faster and more accurate at estimating flu trends than any existing method of epidemiology.
With such unprecedented information, advertisers are adapting their methods. Having proven that women who are ovulating respond better to advertisements for tight clothing, researchers at the University of Minnesota suggested marketers ‘strategically time’ online ads. Theoretically, and with the right algorithms, it is possible for analysts to know more about us than we do about ourselves.
In September, Facebook admitted it had been tracking the activity of its 750m users even after they left the site.
Although the information gathered could be valued in the billions of dollars, the social network claimed it had simply been a mistake.
When Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, was asked by US reporter Andy Carvin about the controversial Google Plus policy of requiring the real names of its users, he responded with surprising candour, saying the social network was built as an identity service.
Google will later use that information to build new products, thus being able to track all your information not just back to a ‘node’, but to you personally.
Misha Glenny, author of the book DarkMarket: CyberThieves, CyberCops and You, says we need to be aware of the dark side of the net — an underbelly that includes not just businesses on the make, but criminals and the secret state.
“People think they’re anonymous, but what you type into the web-address bar is recorded. In the EU, internet service providers have to keep all records for six months,” he says.
Glenny says states are stepping up their cyber-snooping in response to online crime and terrorist communication, though some governments have bigger ears and longer reaches than others.
Additionally, the image of hackers as kids goofing around, or even political activists, is only a partial reflection of reality, he says. His investigation revealed organised crime gangs manipulating teenage hackers into cracking computers.
“Pornography and [media] downloads are the easiest way to get into your computer, so don’t be surprised if someone cleans out your bank account,” he says.
It’s not the only way, though. Oxford-based writer Anne Wollenberg had her email, eBay and PayPal accounts hacked.
Her mistake was simple — and common: she used a computer that she couldn’t trust.
“It happened after I used an internet café,” she says.
The hackers used Wollenberg’s eBay and PayPal accounts to make purchases. “They put a filter in my email, so I didn’t see the accounts being debited. It made me think [about] how you open too many accounts.
“You don’t get up every day and check the various websites you have accounts for.”
Wollenberg now, where possible, temporarily closes accounts she is not using.
“We never think about where our own info is stored,” she says.
Now that the internet has become a central part of the way people work, socialise and spread news, is logging-off even an option anymore?
Tadhg O’Sullivan, 35, a filmmaker and resident of County Cork, is an occasional Tweeter. He says cyberspace is taking the place of real-world interaction and that people are too quick to share personal information online.
“That may just be the naivete of the first wave of users. I think people are realising that privacy is something you have to work for online. It is not the default setting,” he says.
Even technology insiders express concerns.
Niall Kitson, editor of TechCentral.ie, was an early social media adopter and has been covering its explosive growth for some time. Despite this, Kitson keeps his Twitter account closed to strangers.
“I like to know who is following me, so having a locked account gives me that chance to see what kind of people are interested in my ill-informed opinions,” he says.
Kitson says he puts a “fair amount” of personal information on his Facebook account, though he always removes tags indicating him in photos and is increasingly wary of the network’s moves toward an information free-for-all.
“Facebook definitely encourages over-sharing. [Founder] Mark Zuckerberg’s vision seems to be that Facebook should be a constant flow of personal information, the more you give, the more you get out of the website.
“It’s a terribly naive view. The new timeline layout is a blueprint for people to make autobiographies and encourage more status updates. Users will get a kick out of seeing what they got up to, but it’s all raw data for Facebook’s marketing people.
“You have to wonder how many of their new ideas are driven by a desire to improve the user experience or just create new avenues for companies to exploit as routes to market,” he says.
“It’s complicated,” says Kylie Jarrett, lecturer in media studies at NUI Maynooth, “because the information we give is actually what makes the experience of online media valuable to us.” Jarrett says the problem is users neither know, nor are they encouraged to know, how online data-sharing works. “The worry is about the mechanisms not being transparent to us. We can manage our privacy, to some extent, through settings, but most of us are really bad at doing that.”
Facebook’s ever-changing privacy settings have made many users suspicious, and some, like Anthony Kelly, 28, have had enough and have closed down their accounts.
“I have concerns about the direction it could take, what is involved in terms of my privacy and how much of my online activity gets monitored and shared. I worry about using Facebook now.”
Anthony, an avid user of social media, gadgets and apps, also has Twitter, LinkedIn and Gmail accounts.
“It seems absurd of me to refuse to use Facebook when I continue to use Gmail, given how it skims content in your messages in order to target advertising at you, but my hope is that, in the future, I would pay for an email service and have my own domain and email management system. For now, I have to just weigh the pros and cons of using a free service like Gmail. But yes, absolutely, it makes me uncomfortable.”
Google announced last week that from March 1st, you will need to have agreed with its new privacy policies in order to use its services including Gmail, Calendar, YouTube, Google+ and much more. The changes won’t affect Google Books, Google Wallet and Google Chrome. The search engine giant says these changes will ‘unify’ its privacy policies to make these easier for the user. Users can’t opt out of the changes, but there are postiives. It means that you will have better access to the data Google is compiling about you. But it also means that Google will be able to see what’s in your emails, what you search for on Google Maps and if you have a Google phone, it can even find out where you are.
Although Google cannot sell the data on to a third party, it does raise questions about how the data might be used, especially if a state authority requests access to it.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
