I’M A CANCER PATIENT. I’M WORTH FEW PENNIES

LONDON – If I were a cancer patient, I would be worth $0.24. If I had  hundreds of friends on Facebook, I’ld be worth $0.00075. If I could buy a new car, I’ld be worth $0.0021 and many more other examples. That’s just a part of a new “menu’” about our privacy that companies specialized in web research sell to other companies self-interested in buying this data. Why? For proposing bespoke offers.

Am I a cancer patient? Internet’s going to show me the latest cure for cancer in a private clinic, if I’m looking for a new Suv, here’s the latest model on the right side of my email page. The latest story about the Nsa, National Security Agency and its activity to spy Internet profiles, brings to light the business around web privacy. A recent article on the Financial Times showed the prices that companies are willing to pay. For what? For thousand or million of custom data. But, if we think that these information are worth a lot of money, millions of dollars, we won’t be bitterly disappointed. Because the prices  are below few pennies of dollars.

Information on age, sex and place of residence of a person, on average, are worth just $0.0005. Few more pennies for data about our health status: the range is from $0.14 to $0.26 per person. Obviously, if we multiply for millions of people around the World, the final sum will be a lot of money. So, the issue is not just numbers, because the point is the new business that is called “petrol numbers”. So, web privacy, like petrol, is worth millions and there are companies ready to sell, buy,  resell and buy back. That’s the great business of  the new Century. Century 2.0, of course! (A.A.)