The Use of Data, The Power of The Future
Personal data does not only mean informations that directly identify us (name, email, address…) but all kind of data that will allow to target, to follow, to supervise or even profile every person. These ones refer to our activities which are linked directly or not to us. Machine’s identifier, IP address can also be considered as personal data according to the context. In general, all kind of data that allow us to be identifiable somehow. It’s a field that starts to worry some people but stills a myth for others.
The use of massive data
The only fact of the use of data is a subject that needs deep reflexions. According to IBM, 2.7 trillion bytes of data are generated every single day, all around the world. 90% of them were created during the last 2 years. Since, it arises many questions:
- what become these data?
- how are they used?
- what are their value?
Be mindful that when it’s free, you are the product. Some informations related to our private life are used for analytical goals but also for marketing. Today, internet knows everything about us (name, hobby, navigate habits..). Here, internet means all big web companies that, in exchange of our personal information, propose us more or less interesting contents.
Between LinkedIn that knows everything about our professional course and Google which knows everything about our entire life, these services work because of the energy often renews: our data.
Do you know for what purpose data collected by big web companies will serve?
They will resell them to other companies which will exploit those data in a business intelligence analysis tool. It also exists automatic targeting publicity which follow the conversion of every single click of the surfer, to a sale occasion. The use of personal data can be more scary. Loyalty cards available in the market for customers allow to our favorite product brands to know, in real time, our consumption habits and know us in general by the way. In 2002, an american family father receives a mail intended to his daughter in which a big shop proposed to the girl some voucher for newborn. And the man choked, goes to complain about the situation to the manager of the shop. He tells them he was unworthy that they send a proposition like that to his minor daughter. But, at the end of the day, he learned that his daughter was pregnant. The shop guessed the fact before anyone by analysing consumption habits of the teenager using a data mining system.
How to create value with data?
Our data help for preview analysis system’s big companies. But, what about the real value of them? To answer this question, we will prove that a data correlation has more value than a single data. Knowing that a customer buys in a definite time, a product given, has more value than saving in a long time the entire daily sales realized. The real value concerning basic data of a profile user in social media goes around 1$ per person. In fact, estimates show that data compound by age , address and gender equals to 0.007$. It looks nothing but this value accumulated in thousand users becomes interesting.
The good news is that nobody is informed to our personal data collected, algorithms are charged to analyse and treat them. Massive data collected hope to make the world a better place and profitable, a word where those who use those data are supposed to decide what is best or not.