Emily Turnage
Gamification of Social Media
For this week’s blog post, I can’t seem to find a better or more appropriate topic than that which has been the headline of nearly every major internet news outlet I follow - the recent vote by Congress to “keep a set of Internet privacy protections approved in October from taking effect later this year.” This will have the far-reaching effect of making it easier for ISPs to gather and store personal information of their users - browsing histories, app usage information, and more - in order to sell it to the highest bidder, most namely advertisers looking to more directly target consumers.
As I discussed in a previous blog post, the idea that these companies are saving information about us can be terrifying; though our names might not be attached to that information, enough identifying information is there that could pinpoint us, and that’s not going to sit well with many people - hence the outcry against the ruling. However, as I discussed in a previous blog post, the way that advertisers are using this information is, by and large, not out-and-out malicious. It’s simply a way to formulate better ad targeting, which is something many people may find useful, even if it can be creepy - for instance, my mother emailed me our itinerary for a trip to Las Vegas about a month and a half ago, I googled the places she mentioned, and then suddenly all of my ads across many networks - Google, Tumblr, Facebook - were all Las Vegas-themed, encouraging me to buy Cirque tickets or stay at New York, New York even after the trip had concluded. Still, the fact that Congress is unwilling to rein in ISPs making yet another cash grab at the expense of their users’ privacy - because indeed, that’s what the whole selling user information is - is worrying to say the least. Though buying personal information of specific individuals has been publicly ruled out by ISPs themselves - though that’s not to say what they would do behind closed doors - people are still funding campaigns through sites like GoFundMe and even new nonprofits set to donate to funds like the ACLU in order to both challenge the legislation, and in some cases actually attempt to purchase the browsing history of certain congresspeople who voted to halt the regulations. Though it’s an enjoyable - and ironic - sentiment, the true battle will be waged by utilizing tools created to protect one’s privacy such as VPNs, browsers like Tor, and ensuring that the sites that you do use have HTTPS enabled - a more secure way of transmitting your information to the site in question, without ISPs being able to see as much of that information.
2 Comments
Fernando Madrigal
3/31/2017 01:37:39 pm
This is an interesting blog. For my personal experience, I did notice that when I rented a hotel room in Los Angeles online, I was constantly getting ads from popular places throughout Los Angeles on Facebook for a promotional 5 day stay at other hotels. It seems that the ISP keeps on taking our personal information so they can sell it to advertisers . I did not know this type of information, but after reading this blog, I learned a lot about how internet privacy is being violated.
Reply
5/21/2017 12:43:03 am
Targeted ads are ridiculous. However, there is Facebook which as recently become more transparent about targeted ads and what marketers know about us. There is an option now on ads that says "why am I seeing this" and it tells you why the ad was targeted towards you.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI am a senior studying Communication Design, with an emphasis in Game Design. I like playing video games, writing, and yelling too loudly about things I care about. Archives
May 2017
Categories |