Supermarkets are an extremely low margin business, with the average supermarket earning only two cents of profit for every dollar of sales. That means the average family contributes only about two dollars a week to a supermarket’s bottom line. Some of that profit comes from selling our data to researchers like me so we can study soda taxes, SNAP policies, and ways to get Americans to eat healthier. That people are willing to buy this data means supermarkets can offer us all lower prices; and we might even get better government policies as a bonus.
Any other stores that collect and sell data will inevitably pass some of that revenue on to their customers through lower prices as market competition forces those savings to be shared. Some companies even make this explicit by offering us special deals if we join a loyalty or reward club. This makes our data more valuable because it is easier to track and combine all our purchases from different days and often can be accompanied by some basic demographic information. Because the store can sell this linked data for more money, they offer special discounts to customers who volunteer to be tracked more accurately.
Not all the benefits come in explicitly lower prices or discounts. Because our data let companies better target ads to potential customers, we can find goods and services we want with lower search costs. You may occasionally find it creepy that the internet seems to know what ads to put in front of you, but making it easier for us to find things we are interested in actually makes us better off, saving us time we can use to bake bread or watch reality television or introducing us to new products and services we would otherwise never have found. Lower search costs to purchase wanted items at lower prices may not show up on my household financial statement as a payment for selling my data, but it functions exactly the same way, allowing me to be better off just as if I had been paid in money for my data instead of in more applicable advertisements.
How does Facebook collect data on people not on the social network? What can you do about it?
Now, clearly, no system is perfect. I get ads for women’s clothes for a few days any time I order something online for my wife or daughter, for example. However, overall, all that data collection means lower prices when we shop and more relevant ads when we browse the internet. Not only do those things save us time and money, allowing our budgets to stretch farther exactly as if we had been paid, but they come with an additional bonus. These non-cash “payments” don’t count as income, so they are tax-free.
Now playing:Watch this: Facebook reveals government requests to access users...
The government wants to get more and more information out of Facebook, but they don't want you to know about it.
The social network's latest 'Global Government Requests Report,' released Thursday, documented a 13 percent rise in government requests for Facebook user data in the second half of 2015 over the previous period. In total, governments asked for Facebook user data a total of 46,763 times in the last six months of 2015.
The report also shed light on government gag orders, with Facebook revealing that 60 percent of requests from US authorities came with a 'non-disclosure order' prohibiting Facebook from notifying the user in question.
Facebook also receives requests to block material for violating local laws in particular countries. One photo related to the November 2015 Paris terror attacks was subject to more than 32,000 block requests from the French government.
Facebook said in a statement it doesn't provide 'back doors or direct access to people's data.' The company added: 'We scrutinize each request for user data we receive for legal sufficiency, no matter which country is making the request. If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back hard and will fight in court, if necessary.'
5 tips to keep your data safe on Facebook: Hide your life from Facebook, while still posting about your life on Facebook.
6 ways to delete yourself from the internet: Finally ready to get off the grid? It's not quite as simple as it should be, but here are a few easy-to-follow steps that should point you in the right direction.