Dr. Epstein's talk last night sent me into a reflective mood because of how much I learned. I am currently a marketing major, and the majority of the marketing classes I have taken have been focused on consumer preferences, collecting data and tracking human behavior, and presenting data and products in a way to influence a person to buy them or think highly of a brand. I have always been wary of the ethical dilemmas within this field of work, and am actively making sure that I don't get too close to the very blurry line of manipulation versus influencing. My major seems to be based on what Google is doing every minute of every day for the past several years, and it scares me.
I do not necessarily care so much about the data that Google has on me; that might be something I should care about, but I think that is an issue I can address later. Being in college right now and having grown up on social media and a world of oversharing, privacy is not something I am used to. In fact, I like targeted ads on my Instagram account because I find cool small businesses this way.
As for the influence on elections and people's voting habits, that is absolutely terrifying. After taking consumer behavior classes, I have a very general understanding of how impressionable people can be. The biased search results and Google knowing what they are doing is malicious and needs to be regulated.
I think it would be safe for me to say that I think that Google using my data for targeted ads is not as concerning and avoidable as them backing out of politics.
