If I Ruled the Data…
Well, it is hard to say definitively what data is most valuable. We approached last class’s activity with a research question in mind that then dictated the type of data we sought to collect. So I’m generally going to say location data, or more specifically, location data paired with a time stamp. I think that analysis of a target’s location can be valuable for all types of organizations. The government wants to know where I am in case they see me as a security threat, companies want to know where I am so they can determine how to advertise to me, content creators want to know where I am so they know what content could be more contextualized to my personality, etc. Interestingly, I would say that this is also the data that I find most personal, and dislike giving up. Then again, I don’t mind losing it if it means that google can tell me how to get anywhere in the world.
If I had everyone’s location data, I’m not sure what I would do if I had exclusive rights to all location data. Advertising and infrastructure are the first applications that come to mind. Changing infrastructure is a bit slow, but changing advertising and content placement can happen immediately. By selling the data, I could generate an unwholesome fortune. Or, better yet, by selectively selling the data, I could generate a similarly unwholesome fortune, and promote the growth of organizations I like. I think I’d go with the latter.
I think these companies are justified in taking data for services. They may hide their methods in some long terms and conditions, but there’s never going to be a free service. I’m fine paying for things with my data production. Data isn’t very valuable – it’s the big data that’s valuable. I, the user, am producing an amount of data that is nearly worthless. But the collector is making huge gains off all of their users giving up a nearly-worthless data point or two to create big data. They have large incentive to take data, and I don’t have much of an incentive to hold onto my data. I’d rather hold on to my time, use Facebook, Google and Microsoft, never read another terms and conditions, and hope that no organization ever needs to identify my data production.
I’d say google is getting the most out of my data production. I have a Nexus with android and Project Fi – I regularly use almost all of google’s apps (gmail, youtube, calendar, keep, drive, maps, scholar, translate, chrome, etc). I generally trust google though and have been happy with their services. I’d give them more data if I could.
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Oh, Raj… I disagree with you in that I do not think your personal data–however small in the scheme of things–is worthless. But you saying that makes me wonder how many people have that kind of response to their data being collected, and I think that is really interesting. I see what you mean that big data is where the value lies, but I still think that each piece of small data contributes something important. Perhaps if just your singular data set was left out of a larger pool of data, there would not be a colossal effect on whatever it is that’s being looked at. Yet, I still think that there would be a kind of philosophical loss. (I think that this comment doesn’t really answer anything and probably raises more questions because I can’t really explain what I mean by the philosophical loss.)
I actually kind of agree with Raj on this one! I know it sounds really strange, but I honestly don’t really care if someone knows some of this information. I also really like how you mentioned paying for these “Free” services with the data you produce. I never really put that together, but that makes a lot of sense. I can’t quite complain about it though. I think this kind of circles back to the terms and conditions group. We did give them permission!
It is interesting how much power knowing someone’s location and time habits can give you. I keep thinking of one of those spy-thriller where the bad guy is getting information on a target, and they say something along the line of “he drinks a coffee at the same place at the same time everyday, predictable.” Thankfully I can’t think of much of a reason that companies would want to put a hit out on a particular data contributor even if they had this information (that would permanently shut off a source of data!). I suppose though, when you think of it with that kind of paranoia, it kind of makes sense why some people get so concerned about other people having access to their data habits.