Many people are familiar with the situation when what was discussed next to the smartphone, then suddenly appears on all sites and in social networks, even if you did not say it personally. Is the phone really “eavesdropping” and “spying” on us, “RG” figured out.
- The smartphone “eavesdrops” and “spies” on us. Truth. Each smartphone has a unique digital identifier, which allows you to collect into one picture the activity that was performed from this device. Thanks to this digital footprint, targeted advertising is shown to users – advertising in which the display of certain goods and services is configured taking into account the data collected using a digital identifier. “Suppose, from the same phone, the user switched to a video about animals, and then clicked on an advertisement for a mobile game. In this case, the algorithms can show an advertisement for a game about animals on this phone,” explains Boris Burangov, the head of analytics department at Pixonic.
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- Data is most interesting for social networks. Yes this is true. Social networks are happy to collect information that users share with them – gender, age, place of work, marital status, place of work, etc. They analyze the totality of all socio-demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioral signs, information about which can be obtained , resulting in a portrait of the user. “Advertisers who post ads on social networks describe these features in the portrait of the target audience who should see the ad. Thus, the social network decides who to show ads to, taking into account the totality of user features. The more active a person spends time on the social network, the more data about he knows, the more accurate ads are shown to him and, as a result, the greater concern it causes for the user “
- All data is analyzed on a smartphone before being sent “to the side”. No, this is a myth. To analyze a large amount of data (and voice takes up a lot of space) you need a fast processor and a lot of RAM. And since the vast majority use very inexpensive smartphones, it would be difficult to do this unnoticed. Therefore, for example, social networks ask permission to process personal data and do it in the “cloud,” says Dmitry Galov, a cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky Lab.
- Smartphone manufacturers don’t care about personal data. No, this is also a myth. For example, starting with iOS 14.5, Apple obliges app developers to ask users for permission to collect personal data. At the same time, each developer in the application description is obliged to indicate what kind of data his application collects. In Android 12, users will be able to grant apps different levels of access. For example, if an application uses a microphone, the corresponding icon will appear at the top of the screen.
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Many people think that serving relevant ads and collecting data is evil that shouldn’t be. Difficult to agree With these ads, social media can make money by offering people exactly what they want. It is not for nothing that Facebook is opposed to Apple’s innovations – because of the Yabloko decision, they will no longer be able to show users relevant ads and this deprives them of several billion dollars. And the lack of relevant advertising means that users will be offered completely random things that they are absolutely not interested in. What is the “lesser evil” in this case is a very big question, to which we will know the answer by the end of this year.
