I don't really care about my privacy on the internet. At all. And I don't understand those who freak out. Oh no, facebook can take the things that you typed for all to see and tell people! Or today, when living social was doing that great $20 Amazon card for $10, a few people on facebook scoffed at those taking advantage of that deal for not reading the fine print where livingsocial can now sell your soul to the devil. Or do whatever they want with the stuff you told them. Whatever. (I didn't read the fine print)
Please. If I wasn't already giving it away for free, I would totally sell my privacy for $10 on Amazon. Because what no one has been able to show me is how anything that is done with the fairly generic information that I willingly put out into the internet is bad for me.
Now, if the internet could turn on my webcam and broadcast my oh so exciting sexcapades, or as is more likely me sitting in front of the computer eating jo-jos, that would be bothersome. Or selling my credit card number to the highest bidder, that would also be bad. But telling someone what I bought? Or even what my age and address are? Who cares.
It's not like the stuff is being sold wholesale to the highest bidders on stalkersandserialkillers.com. It's pretty much just being compiled to give to advertisers so they can more specifically target their ads. Not that big of a deal. I'd rather see ads for Zappos than penis enhancement anyways. Besides, this type of data has always been gathered. I spent an entire internship doing regressions of consumer databases to see which company was most useful for campaigns. While it is a little crazy to see how much they can tell about people (diseases, income, party affiliation, donations, pets, favorite vacation spots, and almost everything else) it's not used for anything that nefarious. Just selling things (politicians kind of count as things). And they were going to so that anyways. I don't see how helping them do it slightly better really hurts me. And come on, $10.
Hmmm. I didn't read the fine print, either. But...whatever. If they can figure out how to target ads by using my love for Amazon as an indicator, then they've obviously brought their A Game.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more. What you put out there isn't private. If you don't want it out there, don't say it. The Internet is just real life amplified.
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