With the significant rise of digitalization and the presence of a digital economy, we are able communicate worldwide within social and professional communities using large networks build on different distributed platforms. This creates tremendous opportunities for individuals, but moreover also for almost any company on the market and especially also for governmental bodies.
Rising digitalization gave companies and governments the change to snoop on individuals. Moreover, the utilization of personal data grew as a new revenue stream for many companies (Morozov, 2018). As a consequence, mass surveillance increasingly became a part of our social, economic and political lives. Companies as Google or Facebook store every communication interaction on their networks from the first day of use with whatever device. For example, Google stores user locations, search history, the frequency of device utilization and the interaction partners. Accordingly, Google e.g. is able to create an advertisement profile based on collected information as gender, age, interests, income etc. (Curran, 2018).
Even worse, Facebook shared user data and some of its analysis with third parties, as it become public beginning of 2018 (The Economist, 2018). These data are incredible useful for marketers and analysts to develop advertising campaigns. Moreover, as in the case with the Facebook data, they were used by Cambridge Analytica, a British data mining and consulting firm, to create psychological profiles of US voters who were then targeted online with dedicated Trump influencing material (Curran, 2018; James, 2018). This affair exemplary brought to light the concerns about the way third-party content platforms handle the data their users provide. The danger of abusing these sources by steering public opinions became quite apparent (MEDIA Protocol, 2018). As a consequence, claims to better protect personal data against political or economic misuse have been raised. The new European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), valid for any market company, can be considered as a related governmental protection step, although critics complain already about it as a business hurdle and blocking role for easy, fast marketing actions (Morozov, 2018).
New technologies as e.g. Blockchains may contribute to improve the situation. Data control can be moved away from third-party intermediaries, with data exchanges as a direct relationship between publisher and consumer without a centralized data “hoarder”. As result, the marketing and advertising industry would be decentralized and consumer transparency in the digital content ecosystem would increase (MEDIA Protocol, 2018).
Curran, D. (2018). Are you ready? Here is all the data Facebook and Google have on you. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/28/all-the-data-facebook-google-has-on-you-privacy.
James, N. (2018). The Warnings and Opportunities of the Facebook Data Scandal. Retrieved from http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/digital-marketing-data/the-warnings-and-opportunities-of-the-facebook-data-scandal/4843. Digital Marketing Magazine.
MEDIA Protocol. (2018). What The Facebook/Cambridge Analytica Scandal Means To The Digital Content Ecosystem. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@mediaprotocolsm/what-the-facebook-cambridge-analytica-scandal-means-to-the-digital-content-ecosystem-7ddcba19761.
Morozov, E. (2018). After the Facebook scandal it’s time to base the digital economy on public v private ownership of data. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/31/big-data-lie-exposed-simply-blaming-facebook-wont-fix-reclaim-private-information.
The Economist. (2018). The Facebook scandal could change politics as well as the internet. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/03/22/the-facebook-scandal-could-change-politics-as-well-as-the-internet.
