Over the past few decades,
the way we understand the concept of privacy has been changing.
This is a long and complicated story and a deepdive into it would involve
examinations of tyrannical regimes, seminal works of fiction,
the evolution of surveillance technologies,
and a detailed discussion of
the ethical and philosophical perspectives on the nature of privacy itself.
This... is only a five minute video.
But there’s one aspect in particular of privacy in the 21st century
which I think merits discussion.
Advertising.
Which, I know, compared to those other topics might not sound that incendiary.
But the rise of targeted advertising
is a good indicator of how our expectation of privacy has changed.
You’ve probably experienced that now commonplace online occurrence
where you google a new product then start seeing adverts for it everywhere.
And while we generally accept that this is the way the internet works these days,
you have to admit - such a brazen reminder we’re being watched is a bit creepy.
More unsettling still is when
you’ve only mentioned that product in face-to-face conversation.
How does the internet know about that?
Looking for the simplest explanation,
it’s hard to ignore the microphone you’re carrying around in your pocket,
and you don’t have to be wearing a tin-foil hat to start drawing
some fairly alarming conclusions.
But before we go too far down that rabbit-hole, I should say that
while I definitely understand the logic of that thought process,
personally I’m pretty confident your phone isn’t listening to your conversations
in order to advertise to you.
Primarily because the risks far outweigh
anything that companies would stand to gain.
I’m not saying that they wouldn’t gain anything from listening in -
I’m just saying they don’t have to.
Because when it comes to targeting you with weirdly specific adverts,
they’ve already got all the information they need.
Let me explain.
Advertising is all about demographics - dividing people up into categories.
The more information a company has about you,
the more specific they can make the adverts you see.
As an example of just how far this can go,
let’s look at what we share with Facebook, one of the more notable offenders.
First there’s the basics - age, job, relationship status.
Already these put you in some demographic boxes.
But you also post on Facebook about your hobbies -
ones you do regularly, ones you’ve tried, or even just want to try.
Maybe you join groups for TV shows or films you like,
or follow your favourite authors, actors, content creators.
All of this data can be - and is - harvested, and all of it represents
advertising demographics that Facebook is putting you in.
But it doesn’t end there.
You might check in to places you go - favourite restaurants, your gym.
Or tourist attractions, in which case Facebook knows you’re travelling.
And even if you don’t check in, if the app has access to Location Services,
it knows where you are most of the time anyway.
Forget about Facebook knowing where you shop online -
it knows where you shop in real life.
You freely shared all of this information with Facebook,
and its terms of service let it use that data however it wants -
which includes trading it with other companies.
But where do the face-to-face conversations come in?
Well, Facebook doesn’t only have this information on you -
they also have it on your friends,
as well as knowing how much you speak to and see those friends.
Combining all of this data adds a whole new dimension.
Meet three friends - Alice, Bob and Charlie. Alice buys Product X online.
A week later, Alice goes to see Bob. Three days after that, Bob buys Product X.
And when, a few days later, Alice goes to see Charlie,
Facebook’s algorithm starts to do its thing.
Based on knowing about the three friends’ shared interests,
Alice’s purchase, Alice and Bob’s interaction,
and Bob’s subsequent purchase,
Facebook deduces that
a) Alice probably told Bob about Product X,
b) She might have also told Charlie about Product X, and
c) Even if she didn’t, Charlie might be interested anyway.
Soon after, Charlie starts seeing adverts for Product X.
Now, if Alice didn’t tell Charlie,
Charlie has no reason to think this advert is strange.
But if Alice did tell Charlie,
then both Alice and Charlie now think these adverts are direct evidence
that their phones are listening to them,
even though the reality is far more complicated,
and in my opinion, far more alarming.
Because my point here isn’t
“our phones aren’t listening to us so we should all stop worrying”,
it’s sort of the opposite.
We should be more concerned that we’ve
freely volunteered enough data about our tastes, movements, and interactions
that we’ve made tapping our phones entirely unnecessary.
The bottom line is that however that data was obtained,
if it can be triangulated
to make accurate predictions about our shopping preferences,
the thought of what else it could do should be enough to give us pause.
So if you think you’re sharing too much personal information,
or you don’t trust the services you’re using,
you can, and should, take control of your own data, and vote with your feet.
Because most of the time on the internet,
if you’re not paying for the product,
you are the product.