The illusion of control in the web

The changes and advantages that internet brought into our lives is undeniable. With the internet we have some facilities and tools that are now so embedded in our daily lives that we couldn’t imagine our lives without them. I always question how we managed to survive without them for so long. Today we have at our disposal numerous channels of information and services, and social platforms that enable us to make easier interaction with each other and everything with a low cost, right? No, the costs are high, but they aren’t totally transparent. The costs are high and the challenge is that we can’t estimate an accurate value for it. How much would you estimate the worth of your personal information? Would you put a price on it?

Well, we actually “sell” this information in a daily basis through the web platforms and believe it or not, we do it all for free! During an interview in 2010 2010 Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, questioned about the privacy of users in the internet said the people are getting more open and comfortable with sharing their own information on the web. A statement I disagree with. I am not sure it’s a question of comfort but I think it’s a lack of consumer understanding.  It seems that most users aren’t completely aware that their personal information no longer remains private.

Companies are selling this information to advertising agencies and services companies that use it mainly for marketing approaches. For instance AOL in 2006 published a database with observations of browsing behaviour of 658,000 members over a three month period. The information was so detailed and extensive that a couple of journalists from New York Times where able to derive the name of “4417749” of the users published in the AOL document. 

In an interview with Google's CEO Eric Schmidt  he affirmed that "privacy is incredibly important. It's very important that Google and everyone else respect people's privacy. People have a right to privacy; it's natural; it's normal. It's the right way to do things”. Is it or isn’t?! If it is why are these companies profiteering from understanding, controlling, managing and selling vast amounts of user’s data collect on the web? I believe it’s time companies and users define their roles with transparency with respect to their virtual activities. Companies must stop with the dishonest communications about privacy and users must to stop pretending they actually believe it and take responsibility for their personal information.