Recent events around Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the US presidential election. They have been the culmination of a situation that has been growing for years and that has ended up exploding now.One of the comfort traps offered by the internet is the exchange of free services in exchange for our data. Brazil Business Email Lists
In principle it is something harmless. To access a service, apparently we just have to register. We give our name and email and ready. But the reality that exists in the fine print is quite different.
These companies live on our data. They use it to show us publicity, offer other services, use us as currency to charge others, etc. and fundamentally to know each time better and commercially exploit this information (either on a personal level with our email or at an aggregate level with our cookie).
I’m not saying they are the “demon”. This is how it works for many years.
This is something that many of us have clear, right? So why are these things still happening? Why are there still problems with privacy and the management of our data?
Digital culture completely free has a big part of the blame
One of the problems that we drag from the beginning of the internet is the culture of everything for free.
At the beginning it was necessary that the contents and services were free to start creating a digital community. The problem is that more than 20 years later, things are only beginning to change.
We began to see normal pay for some services (music is consolidating a new stage with models like iTunes Music or Spotify), but usually we are allergic to pay for what we have been using for free for years.
What would you like to pay to use the Google search engine or your webmail? And pay to use Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin?
The vast majority would not even consider it. The problem is that the jump to the payment model is very difficult. It would probably mean the bankruptcy of many of the services. Because of this and because they are much more profitable, indirect and freemium income models have been established on the Internet.
This brings us to the current problem with the data.
We have sold our digital “soul”
This is the reality. With some or other nuances, but it is the truth. The free Internet of the beginnings has led us to ignore issues as basic as our privacy, and what is worse we have become a wimple in order not to pay and everything is as comfortable as possible.
We give our contact information, we give access to our data to all kinds of applications, we share our location, we use our access data to connect applications, to publish content … the list is huge and if you think about it, we are putting sensitive information at risk ( this is what I meant by digital “soul”).
The other big problem is that most of the netizens are not aware of what they are doing, they are not aware of the consequences of pressing “Ok” and “accepting the conditions of service” (that no one reads and each time they are longer ).
