The world of technology is evolving and developing from last five decades with great speed.. With changes in technology, we are also changing. From last two decades ‘internet’ is major and the most important component. The internet has made our life easy. We can connect to anywhere at any time and wherever he is in the world in few seconds. We can gain any kind of knowledge by pressing few keys on the keyboard. We can buy what whatever we want sitting in the corner of the room by few clicks. We are able to do all these things due to blessings of the internet. Today the world has become ‘online virtual world’. We know that the internet is not free we have to pay for the internet service to the service provider. But have we thought what about the free services on the medium of the internet? At what cost websites give us free knowledge, providing free services of chatting, voice calling, video calling and providing the free platform for buying and selling goods? We use such services happily thinking that it is free but we don’t know that we are paying a huge cost for using such services. And the cost is our identity. “The faster we surf across the web – the more links we click and pages we view – the more opportunity Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and feed us with advertisement”
(Carr). So we think the although being the customer we use services paying nothing but actually by regularly using free services we have become the ‘product’ of companies like Google and Facebook.
“The old adage goes that if you're not paying for a product, then by default you are the product. A perfect example of this is Google and its consumer services - search, YouTube, Gmail etc. Google, of course, makes squillions of dollars serving up advertising to users of these free products” (Kepes). Google track its user’s (us) activity. It keeps the record of what we search in its search engine. It keeps eyes on what kind of videos we watch on YouTube. It keeps watching on our emails, to whom we send emails and of what kind of email. By gaining data of user Google analysis it and create a profile of that user and study his online behavior. We think why Google would waste its time on such things. The reason for this is that it sells the profile of the user to advertisers. You would have heard about Google AdSense. Google also track us using Google Maps and Street View, where do we go, how often we go that place and how far it is from our location. You might have seen these ads while watching videos on YouTube, using different websites and even using mobile apps and playing games on your smartphones. For an example, if you are heart patient and you search about information about heart problem then Google will analysis your search history and you will find ads on YouTube about any hospital, insurance company or any pharmaceutical company. Not only this but, even you use Google Maps you will find ads of hospitals in your path or any restaurants serving meals for heart patients. “By now, most people know who Google is and what Google does. Google serves billions of online users in this country and around the world … With little or no revenue from its users, Google still manages to turn a healthy profit by selling advertisements within its products that rely in substantial part on users’ personal identification information … in this model, the users are the real product”(Kepes). Google took in more than 10 times as much, with an estimated $36.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, by analyzing what people sent over Gmail and what they searched on the Web, and then using that data to sell ads” (Andrews).
Not only Google but even Facebook use our information for its profit. “Facebook’s inventory consists of personal data — yours and mine. Facebook makes money by selling ad space to companies that want to reach us. Advertisers choose key words or details — like relationship status, location, activities, favorite books and employment — and then Facebook runs the ads for the targeted subset of its 845 million users” (Andrews). Facebook also analysis our online behavior, like Google. It notices what kind of pictures, videos, and pages we like. It keeps tracking on our chats’ conversation. Even it also studies each word of status we write. Now a new feature of different reactions like wow, love, happy angry, etc. also helps Facebook to understand our behavior. Have you ever thought that if you search on Amazon and you find the same item or item related to it on your Facebook wall? “Facebook made $3.2 billion in advertising revenue last year, 85 percent of its total revenue” (Andrews). “Google took in more than 10 times as much, with an estimated $36.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, by analyzing what people sent over Gmail and what they searched on the Web, and then using that data to sell ads” (Andrews). “In addition to its core platform, Facebook also has other platforms including Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Search, each of which haS the potential to become multi-billion dollar businesses” (Specteculation). So we can say that how much they earn by selling our identity, which is priceless.
Not only Facebook and Google makes money by selling our data but there many more companies like Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, etc. uses our information for generating huge revenue. The ads which are posted on websites in such a way that if we don’t want to click on ads then also by mistake we click on them. A ridiculous form of advertisement is pop-up ads. These pop-up ads will pop-up suddenly while clicking on some link or while playing games so that we mistakenly click on it. And as we click these companies start earning. And watching ads many times subconsciously tend us to buy products.
“Google's $40 billion in yearly revenues doesn't come from these futuristic gadgets. The engine that powers its bottom line is advertising, and that engine runs on knowledge about you: your interests, schedule, family, friends, work, troubling cat-video obsession and everything you've ever bought or wanted to buy. Every new scrap of knowledge helps Google advertise to you better” (Beer). So the main source of the revenue of these companies like Google and Facebook are not products they sell but selling our identity to the advertiser.
“Earlier this year, the company whittled down its more than 70 different privacy agreements for all of its products to just one. The move simplified Earlier this year, the company whittled down its more than 70 different privacy agreements for all of its products to just one. The move simplified the privacy deal Google strikes with its users-and improved its ability to track you no matter where in the Googleverse you go.” (Beer). “Information we get from your use of our services. We collect information about the services that you use and how you use them, like when you watch a video on YouTube, visit a website that uses our advertising services, or view and interact with our ads”(Google’s privacy policy). So it is clearly written in Google’s Privacy Policy that it will use our private information for its advertisement purpose, but we are so lazy that we do not want to read privacy terms and conditions. So basically we our-selves give permission to companies like Google and Facebook to use our information for their profit. But though we read conditions it will not save us from being product because if we do not agree their terms and conditions we are not able to use their free products. We are addicted to these products so much that even we know that tech companies misuse our identity for their profit we are not able to stop using free services.
Knowing the fact that we are being a product of tech companies by sharing our private information and using their free services then also we do not want to stop using such services. The reason behind this is that we are used to such interruptions of ads on free products like YouTube, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and many more. It is easy to get used to something, but once you get used to, then it is very difficult to stay away from that thing. The same principle is use by these companies to target their users and making them products.
They create such services and products that we love to use them. They are fascinating for us and once we start to use them regularly we are trapped in the net of advertisement and begin to become the product. So we cannot blame on big companies for selling our identity. They will do whatever to make profit but it is our responsibility to protect our identity which is priceless. I am not saying that we should completely stop to use internet product but I want to say that we should use internet products but in the limit. If you want to gain some knowledge instead of googling, start reading books. If you want to share something or want to talk with someone then arrange a meeting with friends and share with them personally or meet your friend and spend time with him instead of posting and chatting on Facebook.
So using free services of the ‘Online Virtual World’ we have become the product. Such a product which is priceless but it has been sold for generating revenue and earning the profit. Such a product which has the ability to think and understand but its addiction to internet technologies makes it a product. Companies have no right to sell our identity but they are selling it and we cannot do anything and the reason behind this is that we are used to with their services which make us a product. We do not take this seriously but it is really a critical issue. So before signing in to any service you should thoroughly read it terms and condition because in this case, we lose our become product by signing in to services like Google and Facebook without reading their terms and condition. It might possible that signing in to some online services we might lose our money, property and it is also possible that our accounts may be hacked. So stay alert and stop being a product.
