Behavioural targeting

I was watching a BBC documentary called Virtual Revolution and they talked about how we have all sold ourselves voluntarily to internet giants like Google, Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, etc and are perfectly happy about that. It was disturbing, even though I knew about it, it still felt uncomfortable to think of it again. I wonder when we all one day move away from them?

As Douglas Rushkoff in the documentary says that "the product online is not an advert, the product online is YOU". You are sold to companies who advertise you their product based on your activities online.

Behavioural targeting is the weapon we're hooked on. Our online behaviour is constantly monitored. A powerful profile of US is created by ourselves. And this profile is sold to third parties who target their product to those who really have taken interest in it. No harm done then? A good overview of behavioural targeting can be found on Mashable by Lauren Drell.

Google is able to predict your future actions based on your search history with their magic algorithm. Recommendation engines decide what you LIKE for you. Netflix is doing the same as Google: they suggest movies that customers are likely to enjoy in the future. That means we're constantly sold the same stuff. People tend to buy products that they know. We're deliberately manipulated with that. We leave behind patterns that are picked up and used. Rushkoff says that "recommendation engines help ME to become ME, prototypical and demographical ME, not an individual with individual decisions". The question rises: what is privacy in the 21st century?

A counter-strike was tried to be given by Attention Trust Attention Trust =  set of principles to govern the Attention Economy based on the self-ownership of the data we create, and specialised software to regulate their use. The Attention Economy is one in which people spend their personal time attracting others' attention, whether by designing creative avatars, posting comments, or accumulating "likes" for their cat photos. Read more about Attention Economy here. So Seth Goldstein created this tool for people to use, but somehow people were not interested and it died. According to Goldstein "people seem to be dumb and happy about sharing their personal info to everyone". Can't agree more :)

On Facebook and MySpace we are categorized rigidly and strictly based on the format THEY provide (e.g. what music we like, are we married/single/searching, etc). Everything is structured and boxed, and you play by their rules, act how they've set everything and they know very well what you want, they play with you like a puppet. Most of us have created a digital profile of themselves, but do we want everyone to know what we thought this morning...also 40 years from now? We're economic pawns on the commercial front-line. Our life is always public. It is always possible to see, analyse and share our information. There is no privacy anymore in the 21st century.