Why is it acceptable for our information to be used by businesses & governments to subtly influence the way we live our lives?
In early 2012, a woman walked into a supermarket in the US to buy weekly groceries and a little extra. Throughout the day, she began to notice that she had a magnitude of adverts for children’s books, car seats & the essentials needed if you had a baby on the way. This shopper was in fact pregnant, only, she hadn’t told anyone. This young lady had been analysed until the store knew more about her than her family. This is quite a bit more than just knowing your audience. I don’t have a problem with companies trying to make more money, that’s how the world works. However, is it right that your every move can be watched, recorded & stored to manipulate your habits, loves & needs?
Personalised advertising is universal at this point, and I don’t believe it’s something to take issue with; if I've just bought a new TV, sure show me a set of speakers to go with it. In my eyes, It's unacceptable for businesses to advertise online in a way they wouldn't dare to if you were speaking face to face with a salesperson. In the same way you wouldn't try to sell a young child Life insurance, you wouldn’t shout product names to a soon to be mother trying to keep things quiet.
It’s not just businesses taking advantage of your situation, governments are increasingly active in tracking their citizens' whereabouts. Though it’s always done under the pretence of ‘security,’ more & more boundaries are being pushed to keep a tighter grip around their people.. In Russia, Turkey and other authoritarian nations, minorities, especially the LGBTQ community are kept from seeking support online through the threat of imprisonment due to universal surveillance of their personal lives. This can also be seen in supposed democracies such as the US & UK. The 2016 presidential election & BREXIT are just two examples of events that have been heavily influenced by targeted ad campaigns using personal data to efficiently draw in voters; you may have heard of this in the Cambridge Analytica Scandal.
Though you may think that this will never affect your life, our data is being sold off & used to manipulate the world beyond our control & interfere with our decisions. We like to think that we’re in control of our actions, but when our own needs are abused for profit or votes, that becomes near impossible. When you can’t do something in your own home without being watched, it’s time for something to change. If we don’t want every last thing we do recorded & sold to the highest bidder, this is what we need to do:
Campaign for greater privacy laws online, allowing us to control who knows what about us, similar to the new GDPR laws in the EU. More importantly, don’t support businesses who use these ethically ambiguous methods of advertising, make sure they know that we won’t stand for our lives to be shown to the world. What will you do to make sure that you get to decide what you share with the world?
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