The Illusion of Privacy

• • You Don't own your life on the social networks:
  •  Even if you delete your Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin accounts. Your data is not deleted. They just stop showing your account to you or others. But the data is permanently there, and ah, you don’t own this data, the social network operator does(1).

“ LinkedIn makes broad claims over users' content, giving it the ability to "copy, prepare derivative works of, improve, distribute, publish, remove, retain, add, process, analyze, use and commercialise, in any way now known or in the future discovered…" LinkedIn applies this claim not only to users content, but also all data, concepts or even ideas passed through their service. “ (1)

• • You are the Product: Facebook is not the only company tracking user activities online. It is an industry. Every single "free" product you are using online (ex: Gmail, Hotmail, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram (both owned by Facebook), Google search, Chrome, Firefox, etc) track all your activities and resell it to advertisers in one shape or form. There is nothing for free in this world.

The golden rule on the web

If it is free, you are the product!!

• Are you using Android? ... ah Good luck. you are voluntarily giving away your entire life in exchange for using Google free products. Android sends back to Google servers your GPS location, your movement, your pictures, and your SMS and calls log (2).
• If you decided to delete your Facebook account but will keep using Whatsapp. Apology but this not a smart move!!! Whatsapp is owned by Facebook and it changed the app privacy policy after the acquisition- Facebook is tracking WhatsApp user data and sharing it with advertisers(3).
• Tracking your activity starts with the browser cookie(4), to javascript tracking codes in websites you visit, to middle proxy servers, and it doesn't end with the app or web site you are visiting. So even if you delete your Facebook account, as long as you are using the free web, the data is being tracked, saved, packaged, and sold to advertisers by thousands of companies!!
• If you heard the term Big Data and Machine learning before, One application is about analyzing this vast amount of data about you(5). Then for the machine to be able to predict your buying behaviors(6) to be sold to advertisers for better “conversion”.

1. You don’t own your data on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/social-medi...
2. If you’re using an Android phone, Google may be tracking every move you make: https://qz.com/1183559/if-youre-using-an-android-p...
3. Facebook to start tracking Whatsapp user data and sharing it with the advertiser. https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/25/whatsapp-to-shar...
4. Cookies effect on privacy: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/history-of...
5. Big Data Analytics Is Solving Big Advertiser Problems https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293678
6. Machine Learning to predict buying behavior: https://becominghuman.ai/predicting-buying-behavio...