By L.Farhat | Staff Writer
Have you ever noticed a social media ad that matches exactly what you’ve been interested in lately and found it a bit creepy? Well, there is a reason behind it – a spooky one. Hint: it involves a digital shadow that tags along with you online, and you unknowingly enable it by simply clicking on the seemingly harmless button that says, “accept cookies”.
Accepting cookies has become an almost daily occurrence for the majority of internet users. You are unable to access information or use the internet to its full extent without clicking on the “accept cookies” button. On the superficial layer, accepting cookies is used to mainly enhance the user experience. However, that’s not its sole purpose. Behind this seemingly positive and user-advantageous aspect, there lies a much darker side: the exploitation and trading of personal information.
To understand why this is an issue, we’ll have to first understand what accepting cookies means for the user. When visiting a website, you’ll get a notification asking your permission to use cookies. By accepting this request, you give the site permission to monitor and collect data about your actions (Gormally). This means that the website has permission to track the webpages you visit, the time spent on each, and the links you click. This data reveals what interests you and what doesn’t. Accepting cookies leads you to leave a trail crumb everywhere you go. With every click, you’re leaving a digital crumb. The digital bits are then collected and put together to create an intricate profile which includes your interests, desires, habits, and patterns.
What does all that have to do with Instagram ads for an item that I’ve been looking for, even though I haven’t searched for it on this platform? The answer to this is quite concerning. Long story short: the collected data can be used as a currency. Social media companies sell data collected -which sometimes even include locations- to advertisers and other third parties. This process boosts the revenues of companies by tailoring their marketing strategies to their customers. However, it leaves the user information in the hands of third-party companies. All of this happens without the knowledge of the user. Ultimately, most companies value their profit much more than they do their user’s privacy, and the more data they collect, the more profit they make. This sold data results in hyper-personalized and targeted advertisement. Although you’ve used a search engine to look for a lava lamp rather than your personal social media account, you will see an ad for it while using the latter.
While targeted ads can be relevant, the extensive profiling raises concerns about the privacy of personal information. The worst part about this is that the user has no choice in this matter. There is no avoiding it, for there is no option to refuse this advertising if they want to use commercial platforms.
This brings into question the democracy of this hidden economic model. “Economic Surveillance” is the model which many 2.0 platforms such as Facebook rely on. Users see these platforms as free, and as products that have vast amounts of information and can be used without any consequences. However, as Daniel Hovermann, a head of investment banking, said in “The Social Dilemma”: “If you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.” Users are being exploited, they are unaware what information is being gathered, and they don’t even know that their information and activity are being treated as a product. They don’t even get anything in return for sharing it. This exploitation was stressed on by Chrisian Fuchs when he said that this economy “appropriates, expropriates, and exploits common goods (communication, education, knowledge, care, welfare, nature, culture, technology, public transport, housing, etc…) which are created by needed for human survival” (Fuchs, 156).
Cookies are often looked on as harmless. However, they’re merely another case of companies exploiting the data collected from the internet users. While we can’t cut out such platforms, it doesn’t mean that we’re helpless. We have resources on how to protect ourselves and our data, and the power to spread awareness. Using certain browser extensions and the incognito mode are just two of these resources. It is necessary to educate ourselves on the consequences of our digital activity.
References
Gormally, John. “Should You Accept Cookies?” All about Cookies, 15 Mar. 2017, https://allaboutcookies.org/information-in-cookies.
Fuchs, Christian. “The Political Economy of Privacy on Facebook.” Television & New Media, vol. 13, no. 2, 15 Feb. 2012, pp. 139–159, https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476411415699.