Privacy, a Commodity

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

Search Engines Industry Secrets

If not present in search engine results, the business has no business in the internet.

Photo from photoXpress

Google is a titan of the internet. It has been and still is. Bloggers and businesses have to abide by the guidelines of Google to be present in the web. Having more publicity accords higher ranking, more clicks, and more profits for most.

Not many will take time to know it, but it costs money to operate a search engine. These companies will have warehouses full of computers working as a system to fit the demands of worldwide searches, that is, 3 billion searches every day.

Searches can be optimized to rank on top. JCPenny, a retail store, took the “black hat” to be the earnest result when you searched for “jeans”, “furniture”, and other related products. This happened during the holiday season; and even if you typed in “Samsonite carry on luggage,” JCPenny will still be number one in results instead of Samsonite.com. Their online shopping sales spiked up.

The “black hat” is against the guidelines of Google. It is deceptive and is cheating. It is a monopoly and is unjust. Google has a robust preventing action against these modifications. Even overdoing SEO optimization, a legitimate way of increasing site rankings, can sink the site off the Google results. Google’s corrective action against Penny?

“On Wednesday evening, Google began what it calls a “manual action” against Penney, essentially demotions specifically aimed at the company. At 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for “Samsonite carry on luggage.” Two hours later, it was at No. 71. At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Penney was No. 1 in searches for “living room furniture.” By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68.

In other words, one moment Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country. The next it was essentially buried.” (Segal, 2011)

I say it’s too late. Millions of online shoppers visited and sales are already made. It only shouts embarrassment for the company. German company BMW was also caught bringing out the “black hat” and suffered the same fate in 2006.

Search engine keywords messes up with creative writing. Online writers and publishers are not free to use words they will. They have to ensure that people will find them, and keyword is the way. HuffingtonPost forced keywords in “What Time Does The Superbowl Start” and it rewarded them rankings. I don’t do this; I’m for the freedom of word choices. However,

“..until Google stops rewarding bad writing and various annoying tricks, they’ll proliferate on the Web. Because, if nobody is reading the page, it doesn’t matter that it’s actually better written and contains more useful content than the pages that the search engines are sending readers to.” (Joyner, 2011)

Everything is one search away – publicizing everything. You can search the map to peek at the Imrali Island, a military forbidden zone. Military grounds, air bases, and highly secured prisons in Japan, Germany, Turkey, USA, and anywhere on Earth is searchable.

And when you have an interview or a date, you can know everything about the other person by merely searching the name. The ease of instant information has questions of security and ownership.

How does this industry secret rank to you?

Sources:
Search Engine Optimization Dirty Secrets; Outside the Beltway
The Dirty Little Secrets of Search; The New York Times
Some Clear Facts About Google’s “Transparency” Report; RIAA

 

What If.. The Internet had an “Off” Switch

More and more people around the world are allowing the forever-developing World Wide Web to make their lives that little bit easier.

Photo from modernmilkblog.blogspot.com

Business, social networking and communication are being advanced in what can only be described as the technological age that we are currently living in.

What would you do, however, if the internet as we know it was completely switched off via a single switch without any warning?

Fortunately, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has stated that there is no such thing as a single “Off” Switch because the world is decentralised and split up into hundreds of countries, there is no central “Off Switch”.

The only way it could be switched off is if the governments of the world come together and agree to change it from a decentralised system to a centralised one.

But what if everything were to revert to the way it was prior to 1990?

Photo from viralblog.com

A number of businesses relying entirely or partially on the internet would be severely damaged.

Also all people who make a living through pod-casting, hyperlocal news and those selling products on the internet would all consequently lose their jobs.

Photo from turbo.fortytwotimes.com

With nearly one billion users connecting with friends and family nearby or abroad, the death of Facebook would probably result in the majority of people just not trying to stay in touch any more.

If the internet has made people lazy enough to stay at home to communicate with friends rather than meet in person; will people really put in the extra effort?

Photo from mamamia.com.au

Yep, you would probably regain a large portion of your brain capacity to resolve difficult problems; which would previously have been looked up on the internet.

People would have to rely on books again and reading more has frequently been linked with increased intelligence.

Photo from thedrum.com

The newspaper industry has been taking a nosedive in sales ever since the introduction of the internet. With no more “instant” news through websites and social media such as Twitter; the flow of information will travel much slower.

Does this mean more people would revert to reading newspapers for information? As well as more traditional methods of news gathering? More than likely.

Photo from net-security.org

Without the internet, corporations and government will find it much more difficult to publish information to the public – therefore encouraging the emergence of more Quangos.

Quangos are not affiliated to the government, yet rely on government funding and have been heavily criticised for a true lack or transparency.

Photo from richardtimothy.com

As opposed to working from home or teleworking. More and more companies have turned to outsourcing, resulting in a lot of money being saved – but without the internet this could prove difficult.

This will result in many people hopping into their cars and driving to work before…

Photo from greenasathistle.com

Although GPS systems would still operate, but this would prove difficult without a constant flow of internet-based updates.

The loss of Google Maps and other map based technology on the internet would result in people being unable to print off a direct list of instructions and ultimately getting lost. And finally…

Photo from topdrawersoccer.com

And you wouldn’t be reading this post. Nor would you be reading any of my other posts or the posts of thousands of other bloggers across the globe.

Just a concept I know, our lives in many respects would probably benefit socially and personally but at the same time be ridden with economic decline in a world without internet.

Would the world be better without internet?

Daniel Mayes is a recent Journalism graduate with an upper-second. He has experience working at BBC World Service, Sky News Online and has worked on projects in Europe and Africa.

What if.. Your Account Got Hacked

What if..

..your account got hacked

Photo from photoXpress

@Momentmattters in Twitter has been hacked recently. The most that hackers did was tweet some bar soaps they’re selling. They do it repetitively and I know it’s annoying so I took care of it.

There is nearly infinite possible combination of characters to be used as a password, but some people have sheer luck in guessing your password. The prior month as well, politician Mitt Romney’s private email was hacked by just guessing his favorite pet’s name. We should respond to the security questions with utter seriousness because that’s one way people get through your account.

It’s worth the time to think of a strong password, isn’t it? These passwords should be loads more perplexing than SplashData’s list of worst passwords on the internet. Topping it all was “password” as password, which I would love to buy that person a dictionary because clearly he needs more vocabulary. Next to it was “123456” – how lazy can you be? And then there are those who are just fixated to their nursery days by making “12345678” as their password. But, I won’t recommend an overly inert password like “j7%4s(=z@,a+6qz” because it’s also a hassle if you keep forgetting your password.

At the least of it, we have invested time in our accounts; but there are also valuable data at risk. When Linkedin was hacked, the hackers may control the users’s accounts and contacts. Allegedly, millions of data are shed when Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked in 2011. It halted PlayStation Network’s operation for a month. And for most people, they can be hospitalized when they found out their daily updates are all gone.

I guess there’s money in hacking? Or does it only feed the pride of the geeks that they can breach the multinationals? I don’t know what they’ll do with the account of other people but mess it up; and that would only mean something if you knew the person you’re hacking. However, screwing up an enemy’s account is a great revenge venture.

What if your account got hacked (wordpress, facebook, email, any account), what will be risked?

Do You Have Social Media Etiquette?

Do You Have Social Media Etiquette?
by Nancy O’Neill of onedotadvice

When you post a photo online or tag a person in a picture, do you ask permission from them first?

Photo from photoXpress

What about sharing private information about your family or friends? Or what about posting videos or photos of strangers on your social media sites?

With the ease of capturing people in public without their knowledge, it’s impossible for someone to retain privacy unless they never leave their house. Let’s say you’re at a restaurant with your family enjoying dinner. Or you’re at school or work going through your daily routine. Or maybe it’s the weekend and you’re shopping at the mall. Anyone with a cell phone could be taking your picture or shooting a video of you without you ever knowing it. Within a matter of minutes, they’ve posted it on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. Your name probably isn’t mentioned unless they know you and maybe you won’t ever see the post but your personal life is now public without your permission.

What if you’re with some of your friends just goofing around? Someone pulls out a camera or their phone and starts clicking. Everyone is having fun but maybe not all of the people involved actually want these photos plastered all over Internet. Just because you can take photos effortlessly these days and post them online doesn’t mean you should.

Let’s look at another situation. You attend a conference. You meet lots of people, make great contacts and instant friends, and exchange all your social media information. It’s common for people to be taking pictures of everything and anything all day long at an event. Before your head hits the pillow, there’s a good chance that someone took your picture during the day and that you will be tagged in a photo posted online somewhere. In this situation, it’s probably harmless and most people won’t care if you shared their photo. However, it wouldn’t hurt to exercise common courtesy and get their permission or at least mention that you might share it with several thousand of your closest friends on Twitter or Facebook.

Ask yourself this question. “Would I take a photo of someone and post it on a freeway billboard or send it to a newspaper editor or use it in a book I was writing, all without ever asking the person’s permission first?”

Sharing information, videos, and photos online shouldn’t be any different from what you would respectfully do in person. People are entitled to their privacy. The next time you take a photo or video of someone and are ready to post it online, think about asking their permission first.

When kids are involved, extra consideration should be taken. Everyone, including parents, should think long and hard before posting anything online about their own kids or other kids without permission. What you share now will have an effect on their lives for many years to come.

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