We spend much of our time online, and we are eager to share our personal data with companies that ask for it. You may be signing up to receive an email blast about your horoscope only to have the website ask for your full name, address, phone number, a screen name, email address, and date of birth.
To receive your horoscope via email, you should only need to provide your email address and birth month, not the rest of the requested information. Moreover, you shouldn’t have to be afraid that the horoscope website is going to sell your email address to spam companies.
Many, many websites nowadays take your personal information and sell it. Companies like Google and Facebook are as profitable as they are because they sell you. You are their product, and we openly give away our information for the benefit of the master company. They play us like puppets.
Google X is Google’s top-secret department where masterminds work on top-secret missions and projects for governments as well as heavily propriety Google content. For example, Google X were the developers of Google Glasses, a pair of glasses that contained a small TV in the lens that provided augmented reality.
This secret department isn’t meant to make Google money, but rather make technology that will propel Google into the future.
Recently, The Verge received a leaked Google X video on how Google can manipulate a person to completely change who they are. Google has a file on all of us, and we all unknowingly provide our details to Google.
Every time you carry out a search on Google, watch a video on YouTube or visit a website that uses Google Analytics, Google is tracking you and begins to learn about you.
The leaked video showcases how the Google X team can take information about a person and then offer them subtle suggestions on how to live their lives. By making subtle suggestions, it begins to change how people think and behave. Eventually, the person gains trust with the Google suggestions and will follow through with whatever the suggestion is. It’s a method of mind control.
Oddly enough, this is exactly how the terroristic group ISIS takes control of its potential members. The ISIS internet operatives slowly become friends with the victim and begin changing their point of view of the world. After a long period of time, the victim trusts the ISIS operative and will obey their commands and objectives.
The Verge’s leaked video is mind-blowing, and I would recommend checking it out. Pay close attention to when the Google X team mentions how over time they understand the person so well; they can begin to fabricate products and offer suggested prices for new products that it knows it’s host will purchase.
Mentioning all of this is exactly the problem that the world is having with Google and similar companies such as Facebook. We are their product, and our data are being used for their gain. We are nothing but puppets to them.
Two years ago, the European commission group passed a new regulation called the European General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR. Its purpose was simple in that companies must be transparent, secure, and public about how they control and use a person’s internet data.
While the regulation only protects those living in the European Union (EU), the law was written in a way that protects more than just their own citizens. Even if a company does not operate in the EU, if an EU citizen visits a website and data is collected while not being publicly displayed on how it is being collected, that website is in breach of the law.
For example, Qwerty Articles is based in the United States and has no association with the EU or its citizens. However, since an EU citizen is openly allowed to visit Qwerty Articles, if we collected personal data and did not conform to the law, we would be in violation.
We do not collect email addresses, IPs, names, or any public account information. Therefore, nothing is stored on our side that is in violation. We only use Google Analytics which collects user tracking information around the website, such as which pages are the most popular, how long someone stays on a website, what device they used to get to the website, and how they got to the website. All of the data is anonymized to Qwerty Articles, leaving Google holding the problem of GDPR.
If we did collect user data, such as a forum where people signed up with a username, email address, date of birth, and similar information, then we would need to display how we store the information, who we sell it to, and what we do with it.
Not only would we need to do all of that, but we would also need to have options for EU citizens to delete, download, move, or copy their information. If someone in the U.S. asked for these same privileges, they could be denied as the regulation does not protect them.
In my opinion, the regulation is brilliant and one that should be adopted by the United States. We spend so much time online and have so much of our lives online that we deserve the right to be forgotten, to be deleted, or to have an insightful view of what our data are being used for.
I do not want to be a puppet for Google, Facebook, or any other website that is using my data for their profit and want to be protected when I go on the internet. The fact that you need to use a special search engine, a VPN, and tracking blockers to be anonymized on the web is absurd.
If we adopted this regulation in the U.S., we would have absolute control over Google and Facebook, instead of the other way around. That file that Google has on us, we could ask to see it, download it, and even have them delete it.
The GDPR protects the citizen and puts the big bad companies at fault if they break the law, costing them millions of dollars in fines if they break it.
Luckily, since every website needs to comply with the GDPR, a lot of us in the U.S. are gaining the benefit brought to EU citizens. Unless, of course, a website skips over the GDPR and outright blocks EU IP addresses instead, therefore, blocking EU citizens from accessing their website.
To learn more about the GDPR and how it protects EU citizens, Wired has a general outline of what the regulation states.
© 2018 Justin Vendette