In The World of Big Data, Nothing Is For Free

Big data is everywhere and more and more products are getting sensors and collect data. Thanks to the quantified-self movement, there are so many (free) apps that collect a lot of information of users. However, in the world of Big Data nothing is for free. Free products or services that are offered to users are paid for with data and it is unclear who owns that data from then on. What the effect on privacy or ethical issues will be is also not clear and there already is a movement that users want to pay for a service with money instead of data. A great example is App.net where users pay a monthly fee to use the services add-free.  Facebook on the other hand is losing users, partly because of the privacy issues and partly because of the amount of advertisements that show up in your timeline nowadays.

So, how come we are all still fine with the idea that we pay for services with our data? Many of the services we use today, started free and innocent. At the beginning of the internet we did not see any harm in using services like Google, Facebook or any of the other online services that came and went in the past decade. We have become so used to the idea that everything online is for free, that we refuse to pay for online services.

In the past decade, these organisations however have slowly but surely moved to profiling you and storing more and more data about you, while constantly adding free services. We have become so addicted to these services that we cannot give them up, while we still expect that they are free of charge. In the mean time these organisations that you once thought were connecting you to your friends and information as a free utility, are now targeting you with highly personalized advertisements using your data. They are making money with your data and they are making big money.

What happens to all that data? Each field filled out, each click, each information on how often we use a product / service, when we use it or how we use it, everything gets translated into data-driven product/organisation improvements or to serve up increasingly targeted advertisements. As the services are becoming more expansive to maintain or to build, the advertising is becoming bigger. Investors are expecting a return on their investments as well, especially in the case of public companies. A perfect example is Facebook, where the advertising space in the news feed is becoming larger and larger. As long as users do not feel that this is an intrusion into their private space, Facebook can continue to show more advertising. Facebooks Graph Search will use more information of your profile, and even starts buying information from third parties, to improve its targeted advertising.

We therefore need to become more aware about our Big Data footprints online. We should be more willing to understand the costs of those free services. We actually should start to think of each data point as an economic transaction occurring between the user and the service provider. Paying attention to the terms & conditions and privacy statements of websites would be done more often. As well as checking your privacy settings on the social networks once in a while. Fortunately, more and more websites are advising users how to adjust the privacy settings to appropriate levels.

What else could be the solution? The solution is two fold. First of all, companies should be very clear about what data they collect and what they do with it. Who reads a privacy post I tried to create guidelines for Big Data ethics and privacy and one of these are simplicity and transparency. Whats wrong with a simple and short privacy statement of less than 1.000 words? If companies are transparent about what data they collect, why they collect it and what they do with it than users can decide for themselves whether or not they want to use the service / product.

The second solution can be to give users the opportunity to use a service without any data being collected or stored. In that case the user should be able to pay for the service with money. This is a validated approach, as the success of App.net shows who have already 20.000 paying users.

In the world of Big Data, companies will only collect more and more data from users. More data means more insights that could lead to more revenue. However, users should be aware of this and have to possibility to pay with real money instead of with their data for services that they want to use. So be aware of how you use products /services and remember that nothing in this world is free of charge.

Image: Krisjacobs | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images