Why our personal data is worthier than we think?

What about the well known phrase “If something is free, YOU are the product”

Every time we use a website, app, or any online service, we are likely to provide personal information, which is then collected and stored by companies, who use it to make money.

How do they do this and why we are not perceiving it?

Making us targeted advertising, determining our preferences and interests; by selling it to third parties, which then use it for a variety of purposes; to help themselves improve product and services; and by identifying potencial security threats by monitoring our online activity and identifying patterns.?

Our personal data is more valuable than we may realize, companies use our data to generate revenue. Owning our privacy means taking control of the personal information we share online and making informed decisions about who has access to it.

Some steps to protect it would be, reading privacy policies, being mindful of what we share, using strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, being cautious of links in suspicious emails, controlling our privacy settings, and using a VPN in ‘free’ or public WiFi networks since someone could be monitoring the traffic.

Reinforcing the upper information we can date back to three specific and isolated episodes, who’s protagonists where Andrew Lewis, Richard Serra, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In first hand, Andrew Lewis become famous due to his mass-retweeted (tweet) saying “If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.”

On the other side, in a deeper video published back in 1973 by?Richard Serra (even in the MoMa), emphasizes this by saying “The product of Television, Commercial Television, is the Audience”. In commercial broadcasting the viewer pays for the privilege of having himself sold. It is the consumer who is consumed. We are the end product. ‘Consumers is being consumed’.

And last but not least, we have the mass Cambridge Analytics scandal “Profit over people”, setting up Facebook as the epicenter of the issue, which made users take stock they put in social media giants. Mark Zuckerberg had to earn back the trust of his users, announcing it would notify 87 million of its subscribers if Cambridge Analytics grabbed their data, and also tried by teaching others how to “secure their account and data”.?

And, after all people had no more choice of choosing between three paths, join the #DeleteFacebook and other social media movements, watch what you’re sharing and be very careful “granting permissions” to apps and softwares, or just make sure you’re paying for the services you’re consuming.

Before it was just TV, but now, this phenomena is everywhere, it surrounds and penetrates. Internet, social media platforms, deliver the people to advertisers.