We live in a world dominated by digital advertising - Targeted ads are a technique multiple companies and social media platforms use to make the most of mobile and desktop users' buying intentions.
Did you know that there are points in time that you will buy products, because of targeted ads you see? Sounds normal, yes, but how do these marketers work out how to target certain products to you, and to everyone else?
Back in the day, advertisements were a tactic used in the hope you were feeling a certain way. Now, marketers usually have access to your purchase history, internet search history, your email etc so it is a lot easier to work out the best time to place ads onto your Facebook account, or email, or even your search engine.
It's not even marketing, a more expected group of people - The police, know exactly what you look like. They use public cameras to match up your face with one of your many social media accounts. The process is quite simple actually, as long as you have at least one photo of yourself online, the police know who you are. No, this isn't illegal - Worldwide, there isn't really any law against the police to hold your identity - How else can they arrest someone without knowing who they really are?
Back to the marketing - Every time you sign up to purchase something, or enter a subscription with terms and conditions online, you're effectively signing up to allow trackers to access, store, share and sell off your personal data. Your activity can be tracked and sold off to other marketers who might need it so they can target advertisements while you search.
You could have thousands of trackers watching your every search right now, but you never knew it. An accumulation of all of these trackers essentially can build an entire meal of trackers, which builds a model of yourself online, based off of your social media, your search activity, and your buying history.
The truth of the matter is, if you want to protect your own data, it is best to take every step possible - That might even have to go as far as reading the terms and conditions of every single agreement or data acceptance you see and go through. You might want to think twice about posting so many Facebook photos, or even protect your browsing with either a VPN or incognito mode. These might be of little help however, because data trackers still see what you're doing, it's just not stored on the search engine, that's all.
So, next time you enter a new website, or sign a simple data agreement upon a landing page - Think about what they're asking for, and read the small print, it might stop the company from being able to target advertisements out of your own history.
Thank you for reading 'Personal data - How secure is your privacy? ' by IT Block. IT Block is an IT support services provider based in Singapore and a registered Google News source.
