How did the tech industry shift from being in the tech business to the user-data business?
Google collects data on billions of people daily, but the idea that users benefit from ad targeting is a fallacy. If Google’s search were separate from its advertising, there would be less chance for users to be misled by ignored search terms and seemingly hard-wired results.
Google’s sponsored search results and ads are not beneficial to the user. Digital advertising has become a major revenue stream for tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta/Facebook, and Microsoft.
2023 digital advertising revenues:
Amazon: $44.3 billion
Apple: $6.51 billion
Google: $237.8 billion
Meta/Facebook: $131.9 billion
Microsoft: $12.2 billion
Data provided by Statista.
Big tech companies infringe on the online privacy of millions of citizens who use “free” services. They collect a wide range of user data, creating detailed profiles that could be breached and sold on the dark web, leading to possible identity theft.
Companies like Google and Meta use cryptic legal language to explain what they do with user data, and privacy controls are often incomplete, difficult to find, or subject to change without notice.
If it were in Meta’s and Google’s best interests to make it easy to configure their products to the strictest level of data privacy, they would have done so long ago.
2024-03-16 23:00:04
Source from www.computerworld.com