How many of us see the little box pop up stating 'we use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with social media, advertising and analytics partners', see 'details' and actually click on the 'see details' bit? How many of us just click 'got it' or 'accept'? I've looked at the further details before and tried to tick what I don't want shared and then suddenly I can't access the information on the site. It seems very unfair of companies to do this, and restrict the viewing. Maybe they get money for sharing our data? Even this site Blogger get's me to accept the cookies bit!
When you click on the 'details' bit you actually get quite a lot of interesting...and important....information. For example why the information is shared, data retention, and the fact that you can look up the data held on you by using a data lookup tool app. There's generally a list of information about 'the usage, technical and identify metrics that are commonly stored and processed when you use the website'......
| Your location information, including country, state, city, metro and postal code |
| The webpage your were at before this website |
| The type of browser you use and the version |
| The brand and operating system of your device |
| What time zone you're in and what time it is there |
| What pages on this site you visit |
| How you interact with this website, including time spent, how much you scroll and your mouse movements |
| The size of your devices screen and the size of the browser on that screen |
| What content you share on the page |
| If you copy and paste content on this website |
| What ad or link you clicked on to arrive at this website |
| The type of internet connection you use and your ISP or service provider |
| How long it takes for this website's content to get transferred to your browser, load in your browser and render |
| The weather where you are currently located |
| Your age and gender |
| Your ip address |
| A unique id so that we can recognize you |
| What ads you click on |
I found it quite horrifying to see what can actually be accessed. I mean why know about the weather? How do they find out the weather? What do they use that information for? I understand all the rest as it's obviously to do with marketing and targeting advertising, but the weather? You also get a list of vendors that may use the website you are accessing and what purpose they will use your data for. The fact I will happily click 'accept' makes me realise my data information must be out there in internet land for a heck of a lot of companies to see.
Everyone has noticed the advertising that sometimes appears along side some of the sites you view. I may look at a catalogue company's site or Amazon, for example and lo and behold their advertising, on the very products I've been looking at, will appear on any page I am viewing. I have been more careful since I read about mobile phones picking up information, too. I genuinely never thought it was true until I happened to make a passing comment to a work colleague about something very unusual,l and a couple of hours later I had that very item pop up in an advert on my mobile when I accessed a site. This was from a passing spoken comment and it freaked me out so I went on line, googled it and sorted my security on my mobile in my settings by turning off my mic. So far so good. No more creepy adverts popping up after I have made a random comment! Some technology really does listen in to what you are saying!
The Click programme showed the journalist using a new hoover robot that mapped the floor plan of his house. He then took the hoover to a researcher who found out that the information about his floor plan, and a lot of other details, had been sent to an IP address in China. That was when I realised that data collection could be a very lucrative worldwide business, but also dangerous in the wrong hands. Technology is all well and good but it can also be misused. Why would a company in China want information about a house floor plan in England? Hopefully there is some good reason for it!
So next time you accept those cookies maybe you should read the information they provide about how they will use your information? It is there for you, but in this day and age of widely used technology to gain information about us as consumers, maybe we have become rather too complacent about who is accessing it and what judgements they are making about us? I can really recommend watching the video link I have given below because it may open your eyes, just like it has for me.
What tech giants really do with your data -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44702483
Gmail messages read by human third parties -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44699263
BBC Click video about data
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0005cx6/click-gdpr-one-year-on
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