Everybody’s public unless you buy your privacy.
Photo from stock.xchng
I looked for opportunities to sell my phone online. eBay and Craigslist are good options but I did my research to know if there’s another way to sell it faster. After that, the ads in the webpages I visit are by gazelle.com, a website that buys gadgets. This happens to you as well. Our activities online were tracked and the ads we see are customized according to our interests.
It’s not only online where we are scouted. Go to a store and see yourself in the monitor as you move in the CCTV camera. Travel abroad and they’ll require your photo for the immigration. Apply for jobs, sign up for a service, download anything – almost in everywhere you’ll have records of what you did and where you’ve been.
Researchers from the German Institute for Economic Research and the University of Cambridge investigated whether people will pay more money for privacy. People are willing to give their phone numbers when buying movie tickets as long as they’re paying less.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers countered this study. Their results show that people will pay 60 cents more for a $15 item to protect their privacy.
Products like Evernote, a terrific notes software, will ask you to buy premium just to get rid of Ads. If you’re poor, you wouldn’t pay for premium. You’ll stick with free and get used to the parties tracking your activities for relevant ads posting. If you can afford, you can buy and disappear just like that.
In this time where privacy was becoming a luxury commodity, are you willing to pay for it?
Sources:What Would You Pay for Privacy?; The New York Times
Study: Shoppers will pay for privacy; CNet
Moment Matters 
Thanks, this is so true! I blogged about the customized ad feeds (with some humor) a while ago, but usually they are a bit slow…I’ve always found and bought what I need when the ads start showing up!
Right now I think I’m ok with it, but if ads become more intrusive AND I could afford it, I probably would pay the extra. It seems like nothing will ever be that private anymore. Maybe those days are over.
Great topic! The question is, even if you pay for ad free programs, are you really ensuring your privacy?
There are some companies that will put you on a mailing list once you purchase from them…and from there, they sell their lists out to marketing firms.
Have you ever noticed when you buy from a store online, all of a sudden you’ll start to receive a number of catalogs from other places?
I’m not so sure the same thing wouldn’t happen with apps and online programs. If there’s one thing we know for sure, businesses will find ways to market and advertise to you, no matter what.
Great post! I try to maintain my privacy as much as possible, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it to pay extra. It seems to me maintaining your privacy is near impossible these days, so you’re better off being as careful as you can and accepting it.
I love my privacy – but I have nothing to hide – in Sweden they have really good control on us all .. because everything is based on our National Insurance number – absolute everything, but if it helps me to be safer – they can do what ever it takes. Everything we do are so exposed today … look at media and how they treat people … and I think we have to live with it and we will not be able to pay for our 100% privacy anymore.
Yup, it’s a fascist society we’re given ….
I’ve been on Google presentation the other day. The guys are proclaiming that internet and knowledge are free, and how Google is aimed to keep it free, and in the same time they were teaching advertising agencies how to make money out of it. In fact they were explaining how targeting works, and how good it is to be able to target adds according to the person’s interests.
Now, this is to some extent avoidable – you can always use an add blocker to your browser and avoid the adds. However on mobile devices like phones and tablets you won’t be able to block adds unless you jailbreak the device. If you do, you lose your warranty. And still the mere fact you don’t see the adds does not mean you’re not tracked – you’re part of the very same society that’s monitored and your taste is part of the statistics, so even you can avoid being targeted back, you are still scanned.
If this tracking remains anonymous – who cares, you can say this is statistics. But are we really anonymous when being tracked? Who has access to this data apart from Google or Apple? Have you ever asked why spam does not die? Whatever you do, no matter what spam filtering software you use, does it stop? Are only advertising companies using your data?
Good post and so true. Places you shop not online track what you purchase from your credit and/or debit card too. Every time I shop at Target’, and use my card I receive coupon printouts of items I have purchased in the past weeks. No privacy any longer : )