It’s becoming more and more the topic of conversation these days, which is more important, the convenience of a service or our privacy.
Every day we use a variety of service that don’t charge a fee or subscription which then begs the question, how do they pay to provide the service?
The old standby has always been advertising, those wonderful popups, sidebars, and links that we click on to learn about some product or service that’s likely related to the site we are already on. To a certain extent it’s an acceptable model, it’s been used in print for a long time.
The drawback comes from what is done today, the advertising is tailor made for each of us because the advertisers know us, sometimes better than we know ourselves. When we sign up we give not just our names but a fair amount of our demographic information is collected when we sign up, it’s coorelated with data from other sites and then used to predict our behavior and what we like.
Is the convenience worth it? How much are we willing to give away just to make our lives easier? How much do you trust the companies that collect and house your information?
In my opinion we should all take an active role in protecting not just our own privacy but those of our friends and families.
So, which side of the discussion are you sitting on, I like my privacy, or it doesn’t matter as long as I can get the services I want.