Tail-End or New Beginning?
by Miki Saxon
Everyone I know use smartphones; they are on Facebook; most are active on multiple social media platforms; they shop online and live on Google offerings.
And they tease me unmercifully and call me a ‘privacy nut’ (emphasis on nut) because I don’t indulge.
They find it hilarious that I see little difference between the Feds tracking us and Google scanning mail or Facebook manipulating its newsfeed.
But it turns out the main difference between me and 80-90% of the population is that I’ve already rebelled by choosing not to participate.
And nearly everyone who was asked said that they have now lost the ability to control their own data online, with 91% either agreeing, or strongly agreeing, they can’t control how companies collect and use their personal information, while 88% said they thought that it would be hard to remove inaccurate information from the Internet. (…) social media users have a lot of concern about these things. 80% said they had some concerns about third parties, such as advertisers, getting their data, while 70% said that they had concerns about the government accessing their data. And 81% said they don’t feel secure sharing information on social networks and 64% of those surveyed also said that they want the government to do more to regulate advertising.
I wouldn’t hold my breath.
We all know that Congress will never do anything, let alone provide the kind of privacy protection that Europeans enjoy and Google kicked Disconnect out of the Android app shop.
But the worms may turn, so perhaps, as opposed to being a trailing-end holdout, I’m on the bleeding edge of a new trend.
Image credit: Pew Research via Vator.
