This digital economic topic is very interesting. To learn how companies are making money and somehow, we are responsible and not corporations when it comes to our private information. I personally don’t have Facebook and after watching the documentary I feel much better about it. The funny part is that now that I’m looking for an internship, most of the companies required a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn account to “join and connect” whenever they have an event. (#1) But like Obama said on the documentary “watch what you post on Facebook.” These social platforms need my “likes” so they can become popular. After our readings and the documentary my “likes” aka “personal data” will be collected or sold or maybe they will categorize my profile as a foreign student who’s always looking for words definitions on Google whenever I’m writing papers. In the documentary, (#2) the guy from the TV show Cold Case (35:28) he said because I search “how to kill my wife” he was tagged as “red flag” by the internet. I like that he said, “I’m not a murdered, I’m a writer” In this case, I think it is ok for the internet. I do like the idea that the police, CIA, FBI, surveillance this kind of behavior, only to protect us, not to sell our profiles. (#3) I’m going to paraphrase what the Deputy CIA Director Christopher Sartinsky said in the documentary “Thanks to Facebook and Google, many people willingly will put their personal information and for them, it was a dream that came true” (30:17). Before and after 9/11 I used to think that the government was keeping track of possible terrorist attacks but now it is kind of disappointing and annoying to learn that companies have access to our personal information and making money as well. From our book, chapter 9, “eBay is a “free market” that allows individuals and small traders to compete effectively with larger companies” (page 129). If I remember correctly, eBay uses PayPal and or debit cards, credit cards whenever people buy or sell items.
- After reading this quote, do you really think eBay is a free market?
- I think that if companies are making money by using our profiles then we should get some compensation, do you agree with my idea?
The next YouTube video talks about the new social contract, hope you like it.
Yes, I believe that if companies are making money by using our profiles, we should be getting compensation. However that won’t be the case because it wouldn’t be maximum profit for those companies. They’re smarter than that, they have legal right to use our profiles in their business propositions and that is always stated in their privacy policy. So although that would be very ideal to receive compensation for using their services, I don’t think it will become a reality.
Most of the ideas you post on are I 100% agree on. I also like the writer say “I am not a murderer, but a writer” because based on his experience, it is explicitly invasion of privacy. Also, thinking of your question #2, I do agree on your idea that company should made on compensation since we are providing our information but also privacy. In addition to this, I guess there should be efforts to change of terms of condition as it is spoken in the video, no one really reads it.
I agree with William. Compensation would be nice to have as a consumer providing the information but that also means that more formal legality issues will be up for discussion. If a company is going to pay you for your data, doesn’t that mean you’re agreeing to having your life being an open book? There is no going back. Most likely there, I believe, the companies wouldn’t allow you to back out of your agreement because they have already sold your data. This also can potentially mean if you know for a fact that you are being watched and monitor, will you be acting a certain way to satisfy the need of the company? Compensation seems like a good idea because as millennial we’re always looking to make money the easiest way possible but it’s not practical.
I think its really interesting that companies can in fact use our personal information to make a profit without compensating the original author. Isn’t that some type of infringement (i.e. copyright, etc.)? I definitely think that if giant corporations are making a profit off of us, the least they can do is compensate us. BUT, the catch is that even if we tried to take them to court, we didn’t read the policies or the fine print.