Most consumers have no idea about technology. I’m sorry if this sounds offensive but the reality is technology has evolved at such a rapid pace, we don’t know truly understand what hit us – and what the implications are. Take for instance something as simple as your browsing behavior.
On the surface we know that we look for things, usually through the aid of a search engine, or we go to a site which is familiar to us, and if you’re like most people end up taking a ride through a digital maze of things we find interesting, responding to click bait, stories of interest, products that we think we need, or stories we want to share. On the surface all innocent right? Yeah for the most part it is, but under the hood there is a complex machine watching your every move, every click, every registration. A simple plug in for Firefox helps you see what’s really going on by providing a visualization that illustrates what’s happening when you move from site to site. It's called Lightbeam, it’s free and anyone with a browser should download it.
During a simple test we went to five websites and from those sites we realized we were being watched by 114 “data providers” - companies that attach your household or PC id to search behaviors in order to allow companies a better way of targeting you online for the products and services that might be of interest to you.
We’re not sure how else this data is being used, and in fact we’re afraid to ask but here’s a simple scenario of how it can be used: If you are expecting a child and have been searching for baby cribs, a company could take that life event as a prompt to market an SUV, or a baby car seat. It sounds scary, because you don’t know it’s happening.
But the real question should be – what else do they use the data for?
