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It often irks me when people say things like "Google sells all of your data to advertisers and you are the product!" Not because there are no potential issues

It often irks me when people say things like "Google sells all of your data to advertisers and you are the product!" Not because there are no potential issues to discuss around ad-funded free services and data aggregation, but more because it's like clickbait (in that it oversimplifies a complex issue for emotional effect and makes discussion of actual issues more difficult). Using algorithms to build a general profile in order to increase relevance is not the same as "selling your data". They sell access to your eyeballs in much the same way as a broadcast TV station or free alt-weekly does. The main difference is that by getting some sense of who you are and what you might be interested in, they can decrease (in theory) the amount of irrelevant ads that end up on your screen versus the traditional methods of just blanketing things with general ads or using cruder demographic info. Lots of companies flat-out do sell your data, either in aggregate and somewhat anonymized or in full. I've not found anything yet that leads me to believe this is how Google runs their advertising business. To this day, my main concern with Google isn't so much with Google as it is with a malicious third party somehow gaining access to the info Google has on me.

nerdponx 10y ago
You're right, Google hoards your data, instead of selling it. They are the ones buying. That's not the point. The point is there is a dark market trade in your personal identifying data and metadata, with the ultimate goal of knowing everything about you. The more they know about you, the better they can advertise to you. Advertisements on the Internet are bought and sold algorithmically on high speed marketplaces. Omniscience leads to better decisions in this environment. Therefore your data is precious to whomever owns it.
dublinben 10y ago
It's disingenuous to compare the targeting that Google allows with the largely untargeted advertising on TV or in a newspaper. These traditional advertising media also don't perform the same intensive tracking that online advertising does. There is really no similarity, other than the fact they both result in ad impressions.
drinkjuice 10y ago
> Google sells all of your data to advertisers I totally agree with that part, including the last sentence of your post. However, I don't quite see the difference between "you are the product" and "access to your eyeballs is the product", it's just describing the same thing differently. That others are worse doesn't really change that, the ones who are better are the standard as far as I'm concerned.
pmoriarty 10y ago
Once personal data is collected it could be abused or used in a way you object to. The abuse could be perpetrated by a third party who got access to the data legitimately or illegitimately, or by an employee of the company, or by an owner of the company. As the target of such surveillance and data collection, you just never really know how that data will be used or who by. It's optimistic, to put it mildly, to expect that data will only be used for purposes you don't object to by good people with the best intentions.

nerdponx 10y ago

You're right, Google hoards your data, instead of selling it. They are the ones buying. That's not the point. The point is there is a dark market trade in your personal identifying data and metadata, with the ultimate goal of knowing everything about you. The more they know about you, the better they can advertise to you. Advertisements on the Internet are bought and sold algorithmically on high speed marketplaces. Omniscience leads to better decisions in this environment. Therefore your data is precious to whomever owns it.

dublinben 10y ago

It's disingenuous to compare the targeting that Google allows with the largely untargeted advertising on TV or in a newspaper. These traditional advertising media also don't perform the same intensive tracking that online advertising does. There is really no similarity, other than the fact they both result in ad impressions.

drinkjuice 10y ago

> Google sells all of your data to advertisers I totally agree with that part, including the last sentence of your post. However, I don't quite see the difference between "you are the product" and "access to your eyeballs is the product", it's just describing the same thing differently. That others are worse doesn't really change that, the ones who are better are the standard as far as I'm concerned.

pmoriarty 10y ago

Once personal data is collected it could be abused or used in a way you object to. The abuse could be perpetrated by a third party who got access to the data legitimately or illegitimately, or by an employee of the company, or by an owner of the company. As the target of such surveillance and data collection, you just never really know how that data will be used or who by. It's optimistic, to put it mildly, to expect that data will only be used for purposes you don't object to by good people with the best intentions.