The websites we visit collect our personal data. Why this happens, however, is not as commonly known. No matter how many precautions you take — refusing cookies, using a privacy-focused browser, VPNs, or abstaining from certain sites — you’re always going leave a digital footprint. When aggregated, those footprints lead a path directly back to you. So why does this happen?
Data as currency
Companies are driven to collect our data for many reasons, but ultimately, it all leads to creating a profile for things like target advertising, tailor-made services, or general profiling for marketing purposes. At a surface level, ads that are relevant to your interests may not sound like a big problem. However, the implications are not so innocent. Companies could gradually manipulate user behavior with unprecedented knowledge of a person’s every habit, preference, and vulnerability, all for financial gain.
https://twitter.com/CommonSense/status/1674056215029006337
While on the topic of monetization, it doesn’t apply only to the current website adapting to you. A common tactic has been to sell users’ personal data to data brokers or analysts. These entities store and process data on a massive scale. A third company could then go and purchase from the brokers the data of only a certain type of users they want.
Stop following my digital footprint
While singular users cannot do more than minimize their footsteps, countries have their own policies for data protection, some stricter than others. The strictest (and, by extension, safest for the user) is the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the EU. It managed to pass despite the pressure against it thanks to the 2013 Edward Snowden Leaks that revealed that the US government had a global surveillance program. This legislation allows users to have stricter control over how their data is handled. It requires companies to gain user consent, share what they own with the user, and even allow users to request modification or deletion of their data from the company.
https://twitter.com/EU_CEPOL/status/1222183385864507393
It is not perfect, of course. Most users will give their consent without reading those pesky popups, but it is a standard. It’s not that you won’t leave footsteps anymore; you’ll be able to ask them to remove your footsteps from their database. Hopefully, this will eventually apply globally as more countries follow suit.
Photo credit: The feature image is symbolic and has been taken by Noelle Otto.
Source: IAI
