In today’s world of technology, many things can become a media literacy concern. One major issue is data security. Are you aware that websites are tracking your every move?
When browsing the web, the popup of “allow cookies?” shows up on nearly every website. However, many people don’t know what that means.
More often than not, people just click “allow” because it gets the popup window out of the way. When you enable cookies, they allow not only that specific website, but other websites to track your data usage. For the most part, companies sell your data to other companies. The main reason for this collection is that it allows companies to target a specific advertising demographic. But sometimes, others abuse data harvesting and exploit it just for the money.
Is your data safe?
Here is a 2018 survey from Statista that asks people how comfortable they are with their information being sold:
It is clear to see that most people are very uncomfortable with their data being sold.
But what kind of information is being sold?
Apps and websites keep track of more things than you think. This following graphic from Tech News World shows different platforms and what information they know about their users.
If you ever wonder why advertisements are so specific to people, here is your answer…
To advertise to a more particular audience, companies need to know who would be interested in their product. They wouldn’t prefer to show camping gear to someone who is not interested in camping. Collecting data on consumer usage allows companies to target these particular interests.
Facebook clearly collects the most data. They collect more than 70 percent of the data that they can legally collect. But because of that, Facebook also makes a lot of money. The revenue that they earn mostly comes from advertisements which emphasizes the quantity of data they collect.
However, many people assume that their information is being stolen.
So, are websites actually stealing our data?
Companies aren’t “stealing” information, instead they observe and notice patterns. For example, they take note of what kind of things you click on– like the clothes or shoes you like. With that, they can recommend similar things in hopes to sell them.
Another way that social media and websites collect data is by asking users to sign up for a service. When it asks for a birthday or gender, that information is typically not necessary for using the site. It is just used to see what kind of audience the platform attracts.
So to conclude, information safety is definitely a media literacy concern. Social networking knows a lot of information about us, but it is simply the information that we provide to them. However, what they do with that data is out of our control, and certainly frightening.
