Social networking sites and applications are growing into massive big data companies, and while that is bringing us closer to a perfect user experience, it is being done at the cost of mining extremely important data.
Leaking all the information that is needed to track you down in an overcrowded country housing billions of people, is as easy as clicking the ‘I agree to the aforementioned Terms and Conditions’ button. I would say it is the easiest and most rampant form of consensual stalking.
This is not only about application algorithms invading privacy by collecting personal data, but also about what applications are doing to ensure that data thus collected is a 100% safe and used solely for the benefit of the user.
The situation is truly alarming when Facebook starts trading data with data brokers as if it were equity shares listed on BSE. Data leaks and exchanges between social networking websites are unstoppable because we became powerless the moment we clicked the “allow this application to access your location, contacts and files” option.
Applications are increasingly making algorithms that mine offline data and activity.
They also analyse your pictures, calls, and chats with perfect mathematical accuracy. This is to say that a Twitter or Facebook knows more about you than your family or friends ever will.
They probably know you better than you. And yes this gives them the ability to provide a perfect experience, but should my calls be overheard for the sake of a better user experience? Where do we draw the line? Should the power to understand me and know me perfectly be given to random stalkers?
Here are a few examples of the algorithms used by applications:
Related: Google Maps Latest Update Makes House Address Searches Super Easy: In Pics
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Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: News 18, Business Insider, Forbes + more
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http://edtimes.in/2018/03/deletefacebook-cambridge-analyticas-aim-was-to-create-a-web-of-disinformation-inject-their-own-propaganda-into-peoples-information-streams/
