Data analysis Sequela: Big Data Internet privacy

Big data has become an absolute weapon in predicting social and economic trends--yet its extremely high volume of information usage and comprehensive analytical processes may completely erase the privacy that we most value today.

With the increasingly fierce competition among enterprises, the seizure and analysis of data has reached alarming levels. The fast-growing data-gathering business begins to support the conclusions of the day-to-day activities of Internet users, but this pervasive and frantic quest exposes our most personal behavior to others.

In addition to building social models and economic trends on a macro level, large data can also depict the status of each other's lives based on the raw data that individual users inadvertently generate.

The target company's customer relationship analysis tool accidentally discovers the secret of a young girl's pregnancy from large data, a conclusion that comes from the girl's shopping record at the target chain. Although she (and her father) did not provide direct information to target, the data collection tool in the store speculated on the fact that she was pregnant based on buying habits and recommended a series of related products to her in the form of a shopping manual-a booklet that stunned the two parents who were about to become grandparents.

Facebook and Google's relationship to big data

Facebook's data team has been analyzing the release information provided on the site, and there is no depth or breadth of predictive power in this vast amount of data--a powerful weapon for researchers, advertisers and government agencies.

The team uses the user's preference for song styles to determine the current state of the relationship and to predict a broader pattern of social behavior through such data. In one example, the data team tried to generalize the "happiness Index" of people around the world through an algorithm that could indeed be corroborated by some big events in the real world at the time.

At the same time, with Google's adoption of a myriad of controversial privacy policy revisions, ubiquitous Internet services have almost made the company a total repository of human information, making it a long time for the government to use its information. Despite recent protests by the Web site about government departments ' eagerness to get personal information from users, they still point out that in the future Google will continue to help the country master the day-to-day behavior of the people.

Governments and Big Data

Governments around the world have different ways of dealing with personal data. The U.S. government is taking steps to collect personal data through social media to monitor potential crime and improve homeland security.

The State Department has also recently asked software developers to create a tool that will make it easier to analyze data from websites such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, and ultimately serve the country. This decision shows the government's strong desire to collect and use personal data.

And the State Department is by no means the United States government only a pair of personal data in the--FBI of the Organization, and even intend to modify the code to the social media to eavesdrop. With the US government involved in the creation of Stuxnet and Flame's two viruses, it is clear that the authorities have tasted the benefits of Internet surveillance, and that their enthusiasm for analyzing personal data will surely continue to rise in the future.

However, with the urgent need of citizens for their own security, these monitoring activities are likely to conflict with the protection of privacy, the resulting contradictions and disputes may be more difficult to quell than the simple topic of privacy.

How "big players" in big data treat their personal information

Data is not generated in a consistent way, and many large data players deliberately avoid the involvement of personal information, unlike Google and Facebook. Factual the company's intention to remove personal information in its data analysis business, and its PR representative, Kathryn Huff, explained the difference by stating that "the company is focused on the right data collection and entry points." ”

Unlike factual, however, many companies, including Spokeo, have been trading their personal data without any integrity, and have included many unacceptable extreme details in their customer behavior reports. For example, they would cite pictures of family members and hobbies in their profiles of individual clients. The negative impact of this large-scale data collection is alarming and may reduce corporate credit scores while violating privacy.

The Federal Trade Commission has fined the Spokeo for such Shanshi data collection, but the company still has its own way and is remembered for not playing.

Large data collection how to respond to COPPA (Child Online Privacy Protection Act)

COPPA, the full name of the children's Online Privacy Protection Act, requires businesses not to collect online data and behavioral details for children under 13 years of age. But because the law does not include government agencies and non-profit organizations, the child's network behavior information is still exposed to many agencies, including the United States government.

Companies such as Facebook and collective intellect are directly targeted by the law, but their compliance with the rules is hard to convince. Facebook only allows users over the age of 13 to build accounts on a technical level, but the fact is that the kids are using various methods to avoid this limitation. In addition, since social media itself has the will to attract young users, changing existing data collection methods is the fundamental solution to the problem.

What will happen in the future?

These companies need to find a way to make money from their personal data, otherwise huge amounts of information will only occupy infrastructure resources and not yield any benefits. What does this mean for ordinary users and their privacy data?

First, we should be acutely aware that the advertising campaign against personal habits is already overwhelming, and that this trend will continue to intensify in the future. Web sites are for profit, so they will certainly use valuable data as a bargaining chip when needed. It will also be the norm to collect and analyze personal spending habits when advertising companies will hype their needs for users.

In addition, the Government will continue to collate and analyse personal data for various purposes; although some social media sites represented by Twitter have made many efforts to protect user data, it is almost impossible to slow down or even stop. In other words, openness and liquidity will become an important attribute of personal data.

Large data, especially personal data analysis, are eating into the privacy of citizens. Without decisive policy changes from major websites such as the government and Google and Facebook, this trend will become an inherent feature of the Internet and remain in the future.

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