Trust not, share not

After reading an excerpt from 'The Numerati' I came to realize the extent to which our data is actually being tracked and digitized, it ranges far wider than I had previously thought prior to taking this course.

The internet is not the only mechanism out there being used to track one's information. As mentioned in 'The Numerati', numerous sources that we do not even consciously consider on a daily basis (but that I am consciously aware of now and also being mindful of on a day to day basis) are being used to track our activities, purchases, transactions, etc. For instance, credit card purchases, library borrowing histories, television shows watched, services subscribed, travel habits, preferences and history, gas purchases, etc. These are all examples of services that have been around for a considerable amount of time, prior to the great emergence of the internet. Perhaps it is only now in our current day and age, due to the processing power of the computers of the present time and perhaps with the explosion of social media all over the internet, that we are becoming more aware as a society and as individuals of the implications of the digital mechanisms out there and their potential to permanently invade our privacy and possess our private information as though it were a commodity (as exemplified in NPR's "On the Media" program, specifically in the segment titled "Off Target"). 

Is privacy a commodity? I am sure that the vast majority of human beings have never thought of their privacy as a commodity, but simply as a right. But do we really have a right to privacy as social beings? Or must we use it as a commodity for the exchange of wealth and other resources beneficial to our existence and our proliferation as human beings? If the latter is true, this means that in our present time, very high occurrences of commodity theft are being committed. I am sure that the majority of consumers are not even aware of every bit of information that is being recorded, digitized and archived on their personal happenings, similarly to how I was not aware of the many sources of personal information retrieval out there, prior to taking this course. 

The level of comfort that one has with the disclosure of private matters and personal information varies widely from individual to individual. There are currently no regulations, laws, or rules in place to govern or protect consumers' levels of comfort with privacy disclosure, it is either all or nothing on most social media sites, and it pretty much goes the same with everything else. One thing that I did notice though, after examining several social media websites through my studies in this course, is the emergence of new applications and websites that claim to not hold any consumer data. I say "claim" due to cases such as the messaging application WhatsApp that asserts its non-use or retainment of consumer data: "...the company’s privacy track record has been horrible: It’s been aggressively incompetent and careless with user data. It has also repeatedly failed to provide users with even the most rudimentary security measures. As a result, WhatsApp left its messaging data wide open for potential surveillance and interception by intel agencies, scammers and Internet lurkers with basic hacker skills." stated in: http://pando.com/2014/02/21/the-problem-with-whatsapps-privacy-boasts-theyre-not-true/. 

So how do these applications and websites actually make money if they are not legally selling your data? What are their interests and intentions in the social media game? Is everyone really trying to track what we are doing on the internet? My initial thoughts after reading the excerpt from 'The Numerati' would have led me to an answer of "yes" to this question, but after some keen thinking and analysis, my answer is "no". Mathematical models for categorizing information into systems that allows us to live and work and thrive have been around for ages. The internet and the digitization of our information is simply an extension of this. We do have the capabilities now to process enormously huge quantities of data, but there is no need to fear or loathe what is coming. The purpose of the contriving of these systems is to allow us to live better and to understand ourselves more as human social beings through the identification of patterns. The purpose of all of this should not solely be seen in a negative light. Marketing is just one small aspect of this, and as stated in 'The Numerati', this marketing aspect is only in it's infancy.

Why else would we be witnessing a paradigm shift in the world from a private to a more public existence among societies and individuals? Is it because, as human beings we are intuitively aware of the benefits associated with all of this "sharing". We have been programmed with a need to connect to others and the internet is capitalizing on this and is enabling humans in new, exponential ways to fulfill this need. Contrary to the stigma associated with this phenomenon, we are becoming more trustful, rather than fearful in today's new digitized society.