Why is personal information revealed so important?

Is privacy something that is no longer considered important in an era of booming social networks? Is Facebook just a rare "accident"?

It can be said, Facebook is suffering from the biggest "slash" ever, related to exposing information of more than 50 million users for Cambridge Analytica.

Scandal has caused Mark to lose billions of dollars, accompanied by a wave of boycott users by permanently deleting his personal Facebook account. Mark Zuckerberg finally voiced his apology after 5 days of waking up, and the incident is still waiting for Facebook to resolve.

Facebook's biggest hit ever, involving 50 million users revealed personal information to exploit later.

But for the time being, we have a factor to note that the personal information revealed is not related to finance, but seems to be something that has no value.

The question is why revealing personal information this time makes netizens so angry? Is privacy in the world of social networking booming really worth paying attention to?

Remember, personal data is a valuable special asset

Any personal information, from where you live, the number of family members, habits, behaviors . what you think will be lost is not harmful - in fact, money for those who want to use them .

When registering to use a service, you must accept the provider to collect and use your data (actually forced to accept, otherwise . invite elsewhere) . Of course, the units are all committed to the fact that the information is not "identifiable", meaning no one knows whose information it is, only knowing it exists.

The data revealed completely valuable.

However, this may be true for data collection units, but it has nothing to do with people who will use them later.

"Consumers hardly pay any attention to revealing their information from time to time" - Rainey Reiman, director of operations at EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation - a public lawyers' association specializing in protecting civil liberties for people use the computer) said.

According to Reiman, the lack of transparency in the use of customer data, plus the fact that companies refuse to allow users to choose a suitable advertising display is a problem. Obviously, your data is valuable to the service provider, and they will trade it even if you don't require any payment.

Privacy in the social networking world - is anyone interested?

"Everyone is interested in this " - Rainey said. According to KnowPrivacy's 2009 study, a research group from the University of California Berkeley, everyone wants to know how much of their information has been used, and what its fate will be. In it, young people - the generation is always willing to share everything, is the group who cares most about this.

"They are people who can freely share with their friends about the breakfast they eat, but they will definitely feel extremely uncomfortable if they have to disclose information to some insurance company their information, or allow them to access personal Facebook via a Like button ".

Users want to control the information they reveal, instead of not having the current option

But even the group of people willing to disclose information to third parties, they still want to know what will happen to this information later.

Rainey said, this means: "Customers do not want to use the" temple "but the information is still". The problem is " they want to control the information they have agreed to provide. Among them, what information is allowed to be published, what information must be kept confidential in the vendor's database. They want to know it."

What will your information be - in fact nobody knows

Once collected, no one will know what will happen to your information. Some companies can sell information - and they can do it completely by law.

In fact, most companies are committed to keeping it confidential because of security policies. However, they are willing to give themselves the right to "share" that information with "strategic partners" - a term of "conceptual fraud ", because it is no different from trading. As for you, having a holy talent doesn't know who will access that information.

Anyone can access your information, but you have no way of knowing it.

Going back to the issue that these companies did not disclose information that was personally identifiable - identifiable information - right? We reveal harmless information, right?

Not really! This information is exchanged between companies, in order to optimize their advertising effectiveness. Although the information may seem useless, once it is personalized, you will have no way to approach or prevent it because you have accepted the supply agreement.

"Nobody asked me:" Do I have any rights to this information when I agree to provide it? "- Rainey said. "And then, you don't have the right or the opportunity to change it, fix it, add it, or not even remove it."

"Once the data is collected and stored in the database, there will be a lot of people who want to have them, and actually they do it relatively easily.

Research has shown that when a data platform is hacked, the possibility of losing important information is four times higher. "

The important information here is financial parameters, credit card numbers . and lots of information that damages your pocket money. And the story is that when something happens, it seems that companies will start blaming each other, not a group or individual who takes responsibility.

But if you don't accept sharing, won't the Internet-free era end?

There is an opinion that the truth is nothing free. When the provider gives you a "free" service, in return you will have to provide them with information. This information will be used to generate profits, through advertising directed to users in need, based on habits and behavior.

That is, if no information is provided, the ad will become ineffective. And when it doesn't work, nothing will be free. Everything requires users to pay, and the Internet era can completely collapse because of that.

Everything requires users to pay, and the Internet era can completely collapse because of that.

Rainey disagreed."I find it very funny when I hear the point that" everyone is interested in the number of ads, " and then " missing them, the Internet will collapse. "

"The problem is, if people really like or care about this form of advertising, then why not give them the choice to show or not, but force them to watch them? If they like and look mind, allowing them to turn them off will not affect anything ".

According to Rainey, privacy advocates are not struggling because an internet is no longer advertising. What they want is respect for privacy, allowing them to choose the type of advertising they want, instead of forcing it as what companies are doing at the moment.

What about "the collapse of the Internet" Rainey thinks this is unfounded. From the beginning, the Internet has always had advertising. The problem is that only about 10 years ago, they have been transferred to behavioral marketing and audience - the methods they want to do need to exploit customer data. More importantly, the same advertising not only occurs when using the service of the provider, but also appears almost in the whole process of using the Internet.

Advertisers do not have to follow users anytime, anywhere.

Jeff Jarrvis - another data specialist also agreed."Advertisers don't need to follow users anytime and anywhere to make money. They just need to give users the option to watch ads without being tracked. There is no choice to decline, that's the problem. " - Jarrvis shared on BuzzMachine.

Obviously, not everyone wants information leaked. You don't care about the information being leaked, doesn't mean that others want it. Even if you're convinced that your information doesn't need protection, many people need it.

Victims of domestic violence, LGBT communities, politicians, human rights activists . all want their personal information to be kept private, to ensure their family's safety.