This is why 'the internet' likes you too...

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“Silicon Valley is excellent at founding and funding companies that give you free apps and then collect and sell your data when you use them. For most of the Internet’s short history, the primary goal of this data collection was classic product marketing: for example, advertisers might want to show me Nikes and my wife Manolo Blahniks. But increasingly, data collection is leapfrogging well beyond strict advertising and enabling insurance, medical and other companies to benefit from analyzing your personal, highly detailed “Big Data” record without your knowledge. Based on this analysis, these companies then make decisions about you—including whether you are even worth marketing to at all.”

Scientific American makes a good point in this article on the fact that what drives (and pays for) the Internet, is the ability sell you stuff. Like so often, the majority of unaware people is subject to analysis and being marketed to. My advise: Inform yourself, protect yourself (difficult password, virus and malware protection, anti-cookie tools) and be cautious about what you put on the internet, and what is on the internet about you.

Set up a google alert with your name and find out what the internet knows about you.

 

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This is why 'the internet' likes you too...