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Can anyone give me an idea of how valuable a person's personal information really is? I know companies are willing to spend a lot of money on this data, but I'm

Can anyone give me an idea of how valuable a person's personal information really is? I know companies are willing to spend a lot of money on this data, but I'm not yet convinced that that's rational. What are some examples of attempts to measure, for instance, the amount of advertising power gained by mining personal data? Does it turn out to be very lucrative? Or is it just trying to get an edge on the competition in an advertising race-to-the-bottom?

andrewstuart2 8y ago
The value of that data in the form of advertisements is usually about how much you stand to gain by selling them something, and how likely you think you are to convert them. https://www.adgooroo.com/the-most-expensive-keywords-in-paid-search-by-cost-per-click-and-ad-spend/ https://www.adgooroo.com/the-most-expensive-keywords-in-paid...
pjmorris 8y ago
> Can anyone give me an idea of how valuable a person's personal information really is? Rough lower bound: Alphabet's market cap is around 900 Billion, FB's market cap is around 500 Billion. Both of their businesses are driven by selling ads based on people's personal information. There are around 7 Billion people on the planet. That's about $200/person for everyone on the planet.
- Fricken 8y ago
  It's more than that. I went out for dinner earlier, and if they had just given me random food, there's a good chance I wouldn't have eaten there again, but I gave them my personal data so they were able to prepare a meal targeted specifically to my preferences. I actually wasn't very comfortable with the information I had given them. I went to a shoe store right after, and the salesman was like "Is there anything I can help you find?" I told him "Yes, but I'm not going to say, I've had it with giving up my personal data so you surveillance capitalists can make money off of me." The shoe salesman directed me to the athletic shoes, which he knew were popular based on past user data he had aggregated, but that wasn't even what I was there for, I wanted dress shoes. What an idiot that guy was. All these capitalists requiring us to give up our data just so they know what to sell us. The world has gone haywire, I say.
  - therein 8y ago
    It seems a little backwards, doesn't it? I am going to try so hard to sell you something that you didn't know you wanted that I am going to look over the obvious... simply to ask what I wanted.
  - ablation 8y ago
    Nice try, Mark Zuckerberg.
  - ionised 8y ago
    You're really clutching at straws with this one.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Google revenue from advertising is a little more than 100 billion per year as far as I know. I am not sure by how many people this should be divided to get a value person.
- phs318u 8y ago
  Let's go with those numbers (which are probably high by an order of magnitude, but let's go with $200/person anyway). That's the value of my info to them. What about putting a fair value on the services we ostensibly get in return. Worth $200? $200/year? More, less? And how about putting a value on the financial impact should my data get into the "wrong hands" and I experience something like identity theft? Without having some idea of the other values we're not really in a position (as individuals) to decide whether this is a fair trade.
tomhoward 8y ago
An individual person’s data is not worth much to anyone (commercially I mean; personal surveillance is a separate matter). An aggregation of lot of people’s data could be very valuable in certain circumstances. E.g., if you could identify all the people who were close to being ready to purchase a house, that’s highly valuable to realtors and lenders - but they can still only expect to covert a single digit percentage (or <1%) of that group, so the data is only ever valuable in large aggregated sets. So the answer is, it depends on a lot of factors.
- paulie_a 8y ago
  I've actually run those ads, the aggregated data is worthless. It was almost on average with putting up a billboard, or running ads in the newspaper. Facebook was completely worthless for specifically targeting that example you mentioned. Google...spend a ton of money trying to Target cheap and more expensive keywords. You know what works for real estate.. Call every expired MLS home every morning. Online advertising for real estate is pointless bullshit. Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia are quite frankly all low quality and insanely expensive for advertising. And yet incredibly innacurate. If an agent is only converting less than one percent they won't last more than 6 months.
originalsimba 8y ago
If you're aware and smart enough to be asking that question, it's totally understandable that you'd doubt it's value. But most people are neither aware, nor smart. Most people are slaves to their televisions, including phones and internet browsers. Most people have not evolved enough to realize they should not tolerate commercials _at all_. Many of those people actually enjoy watching commercials. Advertisers have enjoyed a death-grip on the public consciousness for decades. They literally make people sick through suggestion so they can sell them pills that do nothing. In that system, the data is priceless. It's the keys to people's brains. It's an instruction manual for manipulating people to trick them into giving you their lifeblood (money). But to people like me and you, who are aware, and smart, it's worthless. Because we'd throw those advertisers under the bus to protect ourselves before we'd ever buy their garbage. amirite?
murph-almighty 8y ago
>Can anyone give me an idea of how valuable a person's personal information really is? I argue it's more valuable than just cash. The recent happenings involving James Gunn and Sarah Jeong (tl;dr old social media presence haunting people) are undoubtedly going to impact more people. I honestly suspect that people born around '95 (think 6th-8th grade when Facebook picked up) will face serious career issues based on things they've said in the past. Imagine being able to shut down a political career with a few screenshots from ten years ago, whether they're out-of-context comments on a video or jokes that aged poorly, or a video of someone doing a dumb party stunt. What freaks me out is that the questionable things we say when we're younger and don't know better may never go away, and might ultimately be used as a suppression tactic to be sold to the highest bidder. The weaponization of social media ultimately buys control.
paulie_a 8y ago
The odd thing in my opinion is that internet advertising is shit. It was shit in the late 90s and hasn't improved in 20 years. It's astounding these ad companies collect so much information. Thanks for stealing private information on me and leaking it while not actually utilizing it in a useful way. It's pretty pathetic.
hakfoo 8y ago
I have a theory that aggressive profiling and targeting is a losing game for most merchants. In short, you're only a potential seller to any given customer for a small fraction of time. No amount of improved profiles and clever messaging will expand that window meaningfully, because you only have a modest product line. You're going to spend a fortune building a profile that's not meaningfully better than just advertising on a few manually targeted platforms. I will argue it might have value for a few mega-shops-- the Amazons and Walmarts of the world. Many customers are basically always in the window of "ready to buy something from them", so the value in profiling comes in selecting which thing to advertise to you.
Wimpzilla 8y ago
-One can predict the social ants behaviour spending enough time observing them! -One can predict the social human being behaviour spending enough time observing them! =>The only simple difference lie into not using the knowledge and data acquired about the ants to change what is their behaviour! That's what science gave to industry without any scientist from any biological field felt ashamed about! I feel ashamed about!

andrewstuart2 8y ago

The value of that data in the form of advertisements is usually about how much you stand to gain by selling them something, and how likely you think you are to convert them. https://www.adgooroo.com/the-most-expensive-keywords-in-paid-search-by-cost-per-click-and-ad-spend/ https://www.adgooroo.com/the-most-expensive-keywords-in-paid...

pjmorris 8y ago

> Can anyone give me an idea of how valuable a person's personal information really is? Rough lower bound: Alphabet's market cap is around 900 Billion, FB's market cap is around 500 Billion. Both of their businesses are driven by selling ads based on people's personal information. There are around 7 Billion people on the planet. That's about $200/person for everyone on the planet.

Fricken 8y ago
It's more than that. I went out for dinner earlier, and if they had just given me random food, there's a good chance I wouldn't have eaten there again, but I gave them my personal data so they were able to prepare a meal targeted specifically to my preferences. I actually wasn't very comfortable with the information I had given them. I went to a shoe store right after, and the salesman was like "Is there anything I can help you find?" I told him "Yes, but I'm not going to say, I've had it with giving up my personal data so you surveillance capitalists can make money off of me." The shoe salesman directed me to the athletic shoes, which he knew were popular based on past user data he had aggregated, but that wasn't even what I was there for, I wanted dress shoes. What an idiot that guy was. All these capitalists requiring us to give up our data just so they know what to sell us. The world has gone haywire, I say.
- therein 8y ago
  It seems a little backwards, doesn't it? I am going to try so hard to sell you something that you didn't know you wanted that I am going to look over the obvious... simply to ask what I wanted.
- ablation 8y ago
  Nice try, Mark Zuckerberg.
- ionised 8y ago
  You're really clutching at straws with this one.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
maxxxxx 8y ago
Google revenue from advertising is a little more than 100 billion per year as far as I know. I am not sure by how many people this should be divided to get a value person.
phs318u 8y ago
Let's go with those numbers (which are probably high by an order of magnitude, but let's go with $200/person anyway). That's the value of my info to them. What about putting a fair value on the services we ostensibly get in return. Worth $200? $200/year? More, less? And how about putting a value on the financial impact should my data get into the "wrong hands" and I experience something like identity theft? Without having some idea of the other values we're not really in a position (as individuals) to decide whether this is a fair trade.

tomhoward 8y ago

An individual person’s data is not worth much to anyone (commercially I mean; personal surveillance is a separate matter). An aggregation of lot of people’s data could be very valuable in certain circumstances. E.g., if you could identify all the people who were close to being ready to purchase a house, that’s highly valuable to realtors and lenders - but they can still only expect to covert a single digit percentage (or <1%) of that group, so the data is only ever valuable in large aggregated sets. So the answer is, it depends on a lot of factors.

paulie_a 8y ago
I've actually run those ads, the aggregated data is worthless. It was almost on average with putting up a billboard, or running ads in the newspaper. Facebook was completely worthless for specifically targeting that example you mentioned. Google...spend a ton of money trying to Target cheap and more expensive keywords. You know what works for real estate.. Call every expired MLS home every morning. Online advertising for real estate is pointless bullshit. Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia are quite frankly all low quality and insanely expensive for advertising. And yet incredibly innacurate. If an agent is only converting less than one percent they won't last more than 6 months.

originalsimba 8y ago

If you're aware and smart enough to be asking that question, it's totally understandable that you'd doubt it's value. But most people are neither aware, nor smart. Most people are slaves to their televisions, including phones and internet browsers. Most people have not evolved enough to realize they should not tolerate commercials _at all_. Many of those people actually enjoy watching commercials. Advertisers have enjoyed a death-grip on the public consciousness for decades. They literally make people sick through suggestion so they can sell them pills that do nothing. In that system, the data is priceless. It's the keys to people's brains. It's an instruction manual for manipulating people to trick them into giving you their lifeblood (money). But to people like me and you, who are aware, and smart, it's worthless. Because we'd throw those advertisers under the bus to protect ourselves before we'd ever buy their garbage. amirite?

murph-almighty 8y ago

>Can anyone give me an idea of how valuable a person's personal information really is? I argue it's more valuable than just cash. The recent happenings involving James Gunn and Sarah Jeong (tl;dr old social media presence haunting people) are undoubtedly going to impact more people. I honestly suspect that people born around '95 (think 6th-8th grade when Facebook picked up) will face serious career issues based on things they've said in the past. Imagine being able to shut down a political career with a few screenshots from ten years ago, whether they're out-of-context comments on a video or jokes that aged poorly, or a video of someone doing a dumb party stunt. What freaks me out is that the questionable things we say when we're younger and don't know better may never go away, and might ultimately be used as a suppression tactic to be sold to the highest bidder. The weaponization of social media ultimately buys control.

paulie_a 8y ago

The odd thing in my opinion is that internet advertising is shit. It was shit in the late 90s and hasn't improved in 20 years. It's astounding these ad companies collect so much information. Thanks for stealing private information on me and leaking it while not actually utilizing it in a useful way. It's pretty pathetic.

hakfoo 8y ago

I have a theory that aggressive profiling and targeting is a losing game for most merchants. In short, you're only a potential seller to any given customer for a small fraction of time. No amount of improved profiles and clever messaging will expand that window meaningfully, because you only have a modest product line. You're going to spend a fortune building a profile that's not meaningfully better than just advertising on a few manually targeted platforms. I will argue it might have value for a few mega-shops-- the Amazons and Walmarts of the world. Many customers are basically always in the window of "ready to buy something from them", so the value in profiling comes in selecting which thing to advertise to you.

Wimpzilla 8y ago

-One can predict the social ants behaviour spending enough time observing them! -One can predict the social human being behaviour spending enough time observing them! =>The only simple difference lie into not using the knowledge and data acquired about the ants to change what is their behaviour! That's what science gave to industry without any scientist from any biological field felt ashamed about! I feel ashamed about!