My people there’s no such thing as free lunch o, in 2016, Facebook made $26 billion in advertising alone, who do you think generated all that revenue? It’s you, it’s me, it’s the remaining 2.19 billion active monthly users.
I mean it makes sense that they’d use something of ours in exchange for the fantastic services they offer us, think of how well people are now able to connect socially, even though it’s virtual interaction and how so many people are now making money with e-commerce via their platforms.
“If you are not paying (for the internet), then you must be the product” right? Yes, we know.
It’s an open secret that apps and websites harvest our data to sell to the highest bidder ALL the time, to be honest, the Cambridge Analytica scandal was just a tip of the iceberg compared to all the shaku shaku these guys have been using our personal information to dance.
O ma ga o.
It gets scary though.
About a month ago, Dylan Curry did a thread on Twitter that left us all SHOOK, I mean we knew websites and apps were monitoring and gathering our data, but we didn’t know how in-depth and the general specifics of their clandestine activities. Imagine, Google has a WHOLE ASS MAP on every individual’s movement and some other yeye things like that, if you have time, you should really go through Dylan’s thread.
It gets scarier!
The WORST form of invasion of privacy was done by Unroll.me, an email management app that was supposed to declutter your mountain of mails, can you imagine these guys were actually snooping through their customers’ private mails for their Lyft receipts, apparently they sold these data to Über. I mean we get the people using our information for targeted ads, but to know some people are actually taking things a step further by sifting through our personal mails, is very very wild.
Everyone has been talking about the GDPR privacy policy mails they are being bombarded with by sites and apps they’ve interacted with, some as far back as 10 years ago. Lots of people have taken to Twitter to express their frustrations.
Even when I close my eyes I see the words “privacy policy” and “GDPR”
— Melissa (@MelsWardrobe) May 24, 2018
Finds deserted island
a message in a bottle washes onto the beach
*opens bottle*
We’ve updated our Privacy Policy
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) May 24, 2018
If I get one more ‘we are updating our privacy policy’ email, I’m throwing the whole inbox away! 😂
— Patricia Bright (@PattyOLovesU) May 24, 2018
Sorry I couldn't hang out this week, I was reading the updated privacy policy from every website I've ever visited
— Zack Bornstein (@ZackBornstein) May 25, 2018
https://twitter.com/DejjLoso/status/999778691235315712
https://twitter.com/velvetgh0st/status/999736290953359360
Should we smile through the frustration because it looks like there is light at the end of the data-stealing tunnel though?
Hell f*cking yeah!!!
It looks like the Data Protection Officer (DPO) aka GDPR, has come to save us all from the data hungry boogeymen!
First though, wtf is GDPR?
Europe just passed a law called the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR for short, it’s a long ass document that basically polices the data-hungry boogeymen and is giving back power to the customers, power to control what information companies are able to access, you can even go as far as requesting that companies remove certain personal information (including, but not limited to, phone number, email, birthdate, employer information, medical history, political affiliation, and location data).
Companies like Facebook have already built apps that will allow people to see their data, delete it, and easily download and export it. Also unlike the Cambridge Analytica debacle, under the GDPR, companies have been mandated to report data breaches within 72 hours of them happening.
If companies fail to comply with GDPR data policies, they will be fined 4% of their global revenue. To put this into a clearer perspective, last year, Apple’s global revenue was $229,000,000,000, 4% of that is $9,160,000,000.
So GDPR is gonna make them pay if they f*ck with us again.
