The PEW Research Center report released late last year shows that Americans are concerned, confused and finds themselves with lack of control over their own data. This is important since what happens in the US will finally be manifested around the world. In worse shape in the developing world where still 2 billion illiterate and impoverished people live.
The ability to realistically put words into your mouth could be a serious invasion of privacy and new technology is capable of pulling off astonishing level of originality.
One misconception many of us carry is that when in Incognito mode our browsing is private and not tracked. This is totally incorrect. What it does is that it doesn’t keep any record on the computer where it is being used. But the ISP’s and sites like Google and Facebook can see exactly what we are doing even if we are in the incognito window.
In my post last week I shared a study on how software companies are designing ways to circumvent laws that prohibit tracking of users without explicit permission. We all have encountered the permission popups that give you no options. I wanted to point you to this immensely well researched article on Dark Pattern Design by Natasha Lomas.
Not really, according to Midas Nouwens and Michael Veale both contributing authors to the recently released study by researchers at MIT, UCL and Aarhus University – “Dark Patterns after the GDPR: Scraping Consent Pop-ups and Demonstrating their Influence,” and quoted in TechCrunch.
So one issue around privacy is that bad actors get access to your data through commercial or spurious routes. Manipulation through coercive commerce is real. And all the data gatherers are guilty of it.
It is important to understand Who and How they are profiting from our personal data. Gregory Barber a staff writer of Wired tried to sell his own data through sites like Datum, Doc.ai and Wibson amongst others. He made precisely 0.3 cents.
Looking for predictions for 2020 this compilation of 25 forecasts by Christina DesMarais lept out at me for the very first point :
1. Consumers will increasingly demand more privacy – predicted by Thibaud Clément CEO of Loomly.
I was not aware of Cliqz, the initiative from Europe to build a new search engine and browser from scratch headed by Jean-Paul Schmetz (and not riding on Google or Bing or Yandex for example).
Privacy is going to be a complex battle ground between citizens one side and businesses, unscrupulous actors and the government. To start with businesses and data analyzers have access to intimate and deep historical data about us – things that we have ourselves long forgotten. We are still not fully aware of the impact and what they know. Even if you do not bother about details of your eating habits that you leave on your digital trail being known, you need to understand what these organisations are analyzing about you based on your data. Could your eating habit bread crumbs left on the digital universe quadruple your medical insurance? Or even worse – Can it be denied?
