Online Privacy Trends: Your Data Is A Big Deal

Your data is highly valuable. That’s why you need online privacy.

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Data… do you dig it?

Whether you know it or not, your data is huge. The largest online companies are being hacked and the entire European Union keep data-mining at bay with new regulations.

Your data fuels Big Tech companies that generate millions and billions in revenue each day. Unfortunately they keep all that value themselves rather than send some of that value your way.

People are getting privy about their data. And companies already use data as fuel to drive their companies. Online privacy is trending to protect individual data rights or company interests.

Here’s what we predict you will see regarding online privacy in the very near future.

Your Data Is A Big Deal

There’s no hiding it any longer. The most infamous online privacy hack, Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, opened the world’s eyes to how vulnerable everyone is online.

During that same year, the European Union’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) enactment shook Big Tech to it’s data-mining bones. Some companies adapted. Other sites couldn’t handle the heat and shut down their website entirely.

Everyone began to see just how serious data is.

“If these large companies are fighting for it, and the entire European Union is battling to protect it… my data must have intense value,” thought the everyday online user.

That’s completely right Mr. Everyday-Online-User. Online privacy becomes more important by the day.

Online Privacy Trends

Already, we see power over data shift from the corporation to the individual. When the individual has power over their data, benefits like more secure online privacy follow. In addition to privacy, Swomi’s mission is to create a system that allows people to benefit from their data.

Given all the privacy hacks, breaches, and mishaps of major companies, it comes as no surprise data ethics and trust will see huge progress. As companies see that trust drives success, data ethics will become a main focus. Trust in data usage will be core platform for differentiation.

The more personal the data, the more valuable it becomes. Sources of personally curated data (data that are direct representations of a person’s wishes and desires) have higher value. Contrast personally curated data with presumed wishes and desires based on derived data.

Why Protect Your Online Privacy

Trends that shift power of data to the individual, data ethics, and personally curated data are in the works. But are not a concrete reality… yet. Until then, there are simple ways to protect your online privacy.

As technology seeps more and more into your everyday life, privacy becomes rarer. Don’t believe us? Do a search of yourself online. You may surprised to find just how much of your information is out there, ripe for the picking of any ill-intent character or company. Address, income, family, phone number, and so on. Wow. It’s a great activity for creeping yourself out.

Your personal information is highly valuable to companies. Many legitimate businesses need your personal information. Your medical records contain your social security number and your bank obviously has your credit card information.

But many companies, along with criminals, would do anything to get their hands on that information. Criminals want access to your money and other valuable assets. Companies want to know everything about you to market more of their services and products to you and serve you highly targeted ads. Yikes.

Decrease Your Digital Footprint

For the time being,limit how much information you digitally make available about yourself. For every piece of information about you that’s out there, the easier it is to mine more information about you.

You can start off with limiting the amount of information you display on your social media accounts. Do all 1,000 of your Facebook “friends” need to know your phone number? The people in your life who really need your number likely already have it. You may as well set your social media settings to private while you’re already there, too.

And you most likely already know to create different passwords for all your accounts, use two-factor authentication, and all that jazz.

The last place to think about online privacy is your credit card.

Credit card companies sell your data and information to advertisers without your approval. Yes, that means people out there know what you buy, how much of it you buy, and when and where you bought it. The solution? Pay with cold, hard cash.

And when you do need to use your card, don’t feel obligated to give your zip code when checking out. You don’t have to give it to them. Giving up your zip code is the beginning of a crumb trail that can be matched to other information about you.

Swomi Is On Your Side

With the world in a spiraling fury of online privacy battles, we believe the internet should empower people instead of being an arena where safe entrance requires full body armor.

Slowly yet steadily, data power dynamics shift from corporations to the hands of individuals. Online trends like these show we are on the right path. We simply want to bring the reality of benefits for your content sooner than later. Online content is the contextualized form of your data. And as we have already seen, personally curated data holds the highest value.

People have yet to wrap their heads around the value of data. We don’t blame them. Unlike oil, the natural resource data is so commonly compared to, data has no physical presence. This makes data more of an ephemeral concept where only specialists know the process of mining, refining, and knowing the true value of your content.

You have a right to understand your data and understand what’s happening to it. The whole reason for SwomiBUZZ’s existence is to educate people about their content.

To not know about your content and the ecosystem in which it exists is like leaving a footprint trail along the beach. Where your footprint indents the sand, raw diamonds line the edges of where your heel, your toes, your arches just touched.

Not far behind people follow you, collecting the raw diamonds in the pockets of your steps. They study the diamonds, polish them, and sell them silently behind your back.

And you happily go along never knowing they’re there. You just enjoy the sunset over water, oblivious to the riches you create then abandon.

This process happens continuously given the increasingly digital nature of our everyday lives.

The team at Swomi saw the unfair, unjust nature of it all. We thought to ourselves, “How can we provide a platform for the people that rewards them for their content? After all, they create content daily and it’s rightfully theirs.”

Word Up:

Swomi exists to empower the everyday online user. Our company was created for the people, not profit.

When the internet revolves around the individual, people are no longer exploited by social media, Big Tech, and any of the other hundreds of thousands of online companies snatching at a chance for personal data.

We differentiate ourselves from these other online companies as the only online organization that truly rewards you for your online content. Data ethics and user trust at the front and center. We believe the entire virtual world will evolve to be an individual-centered ecosystem with our help.

sources: iot-now, secureswissdata, slideshare, myventurepad, consumerreports