You're all alone when you are searching the web...aren't you? Think again.
The negligent and liberal exchange of digital privacy and personal data for a personalized internet experience may or may not be justified in its benefits for individual web users. Is it an opportune investment we make when exchanging, often unknowingly, our personal details ? These personal details - your age, your geographic location, your recent purchases and most frequent internet searches- have been collected by a huge range of people behind the scenes. Marketers and hackers alike use the information that internet frequenters give up, often without knowledge that they are distributing personal information with each click, purchase or search. From maximizing profit to breaking into your personal information, the internet has masked in anonymity the ability to cultivate personalized consumer profiles through efforts to collect this personal data - what we will call "dots."
I am interested in understanding whether or not these "dots" -data points that are sent from our browsers, are actually effective in satisfying consumer needs, or if the exchange of consumer privacy with elusive and various sources for the supposed building and targeting of our virtual "personas" are failing to predict a consumer's next move. If so, is our privacy exchange worth our often unintentional sharing of personal details when the "dots" or searches, purchases and other tracked details of our digital consumerism are left unconnected, un-graphed and without analysis or personality? We, consciously or unknowingly, are virtually handing out our information in hopes that we will receive a personalized internet experience.
What do we know about how those who are collecting our data and whether or not they are actually connecting the dots? Is our information effectively placed, predicted and personalized to what consumers want on their screens? Are we, really, just our data?
The negligent and liberal exchange of digital privacy and personal data for a personalized internet experience may or may not be justified in its benefits for individual web users. Is it an opportune investment we make when exchanging, often unknowingly, our personal details ? These personal details - your age, your geographic location, your recent purchases and most frequent internet searches- have been collected by a huge range of people behind the scenes. Marketers and hackers alike use the information that internet frequenters give up, often without knowledge that they are distributing personal information with each click, purchase or search. From maximizing profit to breaking into your personal information, the internet has masked in anonymity the ability to cultivate personalized consumer profiles through efforts to collect this personal data - what we will call "dots."
I am interested in understanding whether or not these "dots" -data points that are sent from our browsers, are actually effective in satisfying consumer needs, or if the exchange of consumer privacy with elusive and various sources for the supposed building and targeting of our virtual "personas" are failing to predict a consumer's next move. If so, is our privacy exchange worth our often unintentional sharing of personal details when the "dots" or searches, purchases and other tracked details of our digital consumerism are left unconnected, un-graphed and without analysis or personality? We, consciously or unknowingly, are virtually handing out our information in hopes that we will receive a personalized internet experience.
What do we know about how those who are collecting our data and whether or not they are actually connecting the dots? Is our information effectively placed, predicted and personalized to what consumers want on their screens? Are we, really, just our data?