Do any institutions having the right to our private things? The answer to this question is absolutely no because if they do, they may interfere with our lives and who wants to be interfered? I do not. Okay, we know that all that they wanted from us are our searching databases and some other personal details. They wanted to collect the data because of several reasons. Let us take an example for the situation, the Consumer Panopticon.
The Consumer Panopticon is a system that collects data from the users or customers and stores it for marketing purposes. How does this work? They may use many ways to collect data but one way that is probably obvious is the discount or member card. Every time when we want to purchase a product, if we have a discount card, we would most probably use it so that we get the discount right? When we look behind the story, there’s another story. All the data of things that we had purchased using the card is stored by the companies. They will analyze them and will make an assumption of what type of consumer are you. Their intention is not bad though; they wanted to see what consumers buy the most in order to run business. This is an advantage for them but a disadvantage for consumers.
In this case, the consumers do not know that they were monitored. When the companies makes an assumption of what type of consumer are you, they will arrange a strategy for the consumer by pulling out a bunch of advertisements into the internet. I find it very annoying. Do we have to sacrifice our privacy in order to help them in their business? For me, I would rather not.
1 comment:
I think that consumer panopticon trespasses against our rights for a number of reasons. First, most websites that utilize this do so by placing cookies on your hard drive; sometimes with or without your permission. Although this perfectly legal assuming you’ve given them consent, it can still be a pain knowing that if you look at an item twice in a day, the price goes up by 30%. It’s like paying for something you want, but having to take something else along with it or you can’t buy anything at all. Even though internet web browsers have options to disable cookies, the user should still have the option to decide whether or not he or she wants cookies from a particular site. I believe that putting cookies without the owner’s consent is illegal. Although the internet is considered a public place, your hard drive is considered to be private property. If the internet is the information superhighway, then your hard drive is your home. I can’t place my trash on your lawn; neither should companies place their stuff on my property without consent.
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