WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Evils of Data Tracking 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:15.000 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm here host 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.000 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.680 And how the tech are you. It's Friday. It's time 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.240 for a classic episode. This episode is called the Evils 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.800 of Data Tracking and it originally published on December six, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:34.080 two thousand fifteen, and Ben Johnson, another podcaster and journalist, 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.640 joined the show for this discussion. Keep in mind, you 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.280 know this was done back in the issues with data 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.279 tracking have only gotten worse since then. It has not 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:50.600 improved in any stretch except for the various agencies that 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:56.280 are tracking data, whether those are corporations or governments. So um, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:01.440 fun times, but enjoy this classic episode. I got to 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:03.800 chance to be a guest host on a show you 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:07.760 host called code Breaker. Yes, And on code Breaker when 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:12.720 we talked, I made a reference to Shakespeare. Yes. Now 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.760 my question for you is are you ever confused with 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:21.319 the seventeenth century British playwright Ben Johnson? Oh man, all 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:25.160 the time opens, all the time embarrassing. Yeah, I know 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.959 I've been. You know, I have been to Stratford upon Avon. 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.640 I have done that whole thing and and and I 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.320 used to you know, I never get confused for that 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.759 Ben Johnson. But in the past, at least people made 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:44.319 jokes about steroids because of the other Ben Johnson, Nadian Runner, 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:46.920 and I used to have a T shirt that said 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.480 I'm not on steroids, but thanks for asking, which was 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.680 a kind of inside joke among my friends, but it 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.720 was you know, I've never been no, I've never been 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.440 that poetic, I've never been that good at sonnets. So 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:05.400 usually I'm not not confused. It's really funny because I'm 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.720 in in an upcoming episode of tech Stuff. I'm going 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:11.400 to have my friend i As actar from c net 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.880 on and his his Twitter handle is at i as, 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.359 so he gets a lot of hip hop and rap questions. 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:25.040 So yeah, it's like me not so much. I'm okay 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.640 with that. But the reason I have been on today 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.160 is because we're doing something kind of a complimentary episode 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.440 to the Codebreaker episode I was on, which was all 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.960 about data tracking and data mining, and to kind of 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.080 talk about what that is, what it's used for, what 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:45.000 is the best case scenario, like what why do we 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:49.720 want it? And what are some really really good reasons 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.000 why we may not want it. Uh, despite the fact 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:54.840 that at this point it's here to stay. I think 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:59.480 a spoiler alert, data tracking is not going away, right 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:04.240 until the sort of posted a post apocalyptic world descents, 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:07.639 until we're all in um fallout for world or whatever 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.680 it is, or or we reach singularity and we're sharing 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.840 the same consciousness anyway, right, yeah, and then it doesn't 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.200 matter who buys what. There's no such thing as an 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:20.400 individual at that point. So until then we're stuck with it. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.320 So data tracking and data mining these are terms that 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.120 kind of relate to another buzz term that you've probably 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.360 heard over and over again, which is big data. Um. 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.680 And the reason why we're even talking about this at 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:38.480 all is because information has value, but it's hard to 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.560 pin down exactly what the value is because it may 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:47.160 be very different from one person to another, or between 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:51.560 the individual whose data it is and some other organization 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:55.520 or a chain of organizations, and the whole thing gets 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:02.360 really messy. And uh, yeah, we'll be talking about information 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:06.880 and information about information like metadata. I mean this it 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.200 becomes a rabbit hole that you can easily get lost 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.000 in as you start to try and unravel everything and 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:17.760 figure out, Okay, well, what's the heart of this story. 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.200 And to be fair, data treking is something that's been 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.640 going on for ages. It's not new. It's just that 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.600 the Internet and the tools we use today allow us 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:33.120 to generate, gather, and sift through more information than we've 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:36.080 ever been able to do before. It's kind of a 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.440 catch all phrase, right, Jonathan. It's it's this kind of 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.680 catch all phrase for for computers in software to build 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:47.599 a really comprehensive um data profile about you in some ways, 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.000 but it's something that credit card companies and banks and 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.960 advertisers have endeavored to do for decades exactly. I mean, 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:58.599 and this can be done for very simple, quote unquote 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.400 innocent reasons. Like one of the examples I like to 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.039 say is you might have a shop and you in 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:08.000 your shop, you sell ice cream, and you pay attention 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.880 to see which flavors of ice cream sell the best, 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.000 and that informs you of which flavors of ice cream 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.000 you need to stock up on. You are tracking the 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.479 data of sales. In this case, you're not necessarily looking 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.320 at individuals. You don't care who it is that buys 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.080 the vanilla, but if everyone's buying vanilla, you want to 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.520 make sure you have more vanilla than the other flavors 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.360 that aren't selling as well. So that's one that's like 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.160 the very simplest version of data tracking there where you 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.760 know you've scrubbed the identity of the individuals. That's not 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.320 even that doesn't even come up. It's not important. But 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:43.680 it can go all the way to the other extreme, 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.760 where you want to create targeted advertising that is going 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:53.839 to appeal to each specific person that visits a particular 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.320 site or uses a particular service, and the whole point 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:02.520 of that is to attempt to get them to buy 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:06.400 something or to enroll in something. It's it's the goal 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.680 of all advertising. It's to get you to act in 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.400 a certain way. And the idea is that, well, if 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:15.600 we can narrow the target down to the most likely candidates, 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:20.000 will get a better return on our efforts. And this 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.480 is theoretically good for the user, right Jonathan. Theoretically it's 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:25.480 it's sort of like, we want to give you the 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.520 thing that you really want, and we want to give 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:29.919 it to you in the most efficient way and in 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.640 the most sort of sympatico way with with what you 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.640 are interested in doing already. Um, but it can sort 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.560 of like data tracting to me means so many things, Jonathan, right. 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.000 It means your online browsing behavior, or the things you 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.279 choose to buy, the platforms, the software you use, the 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:54.120 things you download, your name, age, race, sexual orientation, when 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:58.200 you're sick, what what you're sick with, your eating habits, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:02.320 your television watching habits, your fears, hope streams right when 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.279 you're awake, when you're asleep. I mean, like, we we're 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.040 talking about a world now where where we we want 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.280 these wearables. They can give us real time data feedback 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.480 on how we are doing throughout the day. Maybe you 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.840 are an extreme type a personality and you are trying 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.440 to schedule your day so that when you're hitting those 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.200 peak moments of productivity, that's when you're tackling the most 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.119 important tasks to you, and you're wearing wearables, you're getting 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.000 that feedback and you're understanding all this stuff. That data 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.640 may also be going to other places and there may 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.559 not be any use for it right now. Like right now, 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.760 as you're generating that data, that's fine, no one's looking 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:42.760 at it. But down the road that might not be 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.840 the case for various reasons, some of which are terrifying. 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:49.960 But but you know you were talking about the different 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:52.440 types of data. There are actually three kind of broad 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.960 categories we can classify the data that we are creating 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.840 that that various entities are really interested in. There's there's 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.880 volunteered data, and that's the stuff we share, right that's 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.000 when we go on facebooks exactly, that's my tweets, your tweets, 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:13.400 your your YouTube's, your facebooks, your Pinterests, it's it's the 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.840 stuff where we are participating in the conversation and generating 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.240 that information. We're not just doing that for the people 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.320 that we are trying to impress, or our friends or 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.360 sometimes our enemies if we want to rub their noses 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:31.480 and stuff because they think they're so big. But that's 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.600 that's the stuff that we are actively sharing. Then there's 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.400 the observed data. That's the stuff that companies and other 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.720 entities can can figure out about us just by watching 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.240 our behavior. So this would be kind of the stuff 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:49.199 we buy. The browsing habits we have where we log 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.600 in from. Like, if you are doing most of your 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.000 browsing on a mobile device, you better bet their their 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.560 companies out there that want to know that. They want 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.800 to know that you access stuff on your phone. More 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:04.400 than you do on a laptop or desktop. That's important information. 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.280 And then there's the inferred data, and that's the stuff 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:12.559 that companies guests is relevant to you based upon the 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.400 information they gather from the other two types of sources. 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:20.000 And it's it's this collection that's important. And you know 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:24.080 I mentioned about value and how value is different for 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.960 different people. So the Telegraph did a survey UH in 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:33.599 which they asked people what they felt their personal information 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:37.520 was worth to them personally, like, what is your identity 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:41.080 worth to you? Uh? Based upon the kind of information 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:44.480 to get shared around these entities? Can you make a 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:49.240 ballpark guess? I'll tell you this. It's it's it's less 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:56.160 than ten thousand dollars, but it's more than five dollars. Man, man, 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.600 I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with twenty bucks 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.640 or no, no, no no, wait, wait, hundred bucks. You know 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.680 it's probably because we share so much ben that we 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:10.680 value it so little. But the average person five thousand dollars, 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.160 Oh well, that's good that that makes and that makes 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.440 the average person a lot smarter than me. Well, to 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:19.760 be fair, it was three thousand, two pounds sterling. But 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.319 I did the conversion fair enough, well done, Yeah and uh. 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:26.679 And they also mentioned the fact that, um that while 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.200 they were doing this, they they found that there was 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:34.679 a disparity that that women in the survey tended to 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:39.280 answer more frequently that their personal information was priceless, that 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:41.120 there was no price you could put on it, that 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.760 they would feel comfortable selling it okay, and men were 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.760 less likely to do that. They also said an interesting 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.520 data point, if you will, Yeah, I also mentioned that 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:53.360 older people were less likely to want to sell their 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.520 information than younger people, which kind of young younger people 0:10:57.520 --> 0:10:59.360 are just giving it away. Yeah they are, I mean 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.560 they you know, we're seeing that more and more with 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:08.120 the the the very cavalier behavior of certain executives like Zuckerberg, 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.960 who have said that privacy is dead. No, privacy is 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.280 no longer a thing. That seems to be kind of 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:19.960 the message that younger generations have not only absorbed, but 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:24.000 adopted at least to some extent. Say you and I 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.199 s old kajers. So we claim, yeah, no, if your 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.880 generation X or older, you're like, get your dirty, gruvy 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:36.120 hands off my personal information, you damn millennial right so 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.800 now here. So that's how much the person values their 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.280 personal information in the thousands of dollars range. Okay, I 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.120 know what you're gonna do next, Right, You're gonna give 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.200 me the average company's value on our data. What's going 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.320 to happen? That is exactly what's gonna happen. So here's 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:56.320 the deal. Your personal information to a company at best, 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.600 like at its peak for average amount of information. I'm 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:03.679 not talking about very specialized stuff like if you were 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.559 talking about that wearable example. I was saying earlier that 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.480 would that would be worth more because it's more comprehensive data. 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.040 But you're average stuff like you're the stuff you might 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:17.000 find on a Facebook profile page. It is worth point 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:23.880 zero zero five dollars. So half a cent is how 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.240 much your data is work at the peak average is 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:34.080 closer to point zero zero zero five dollars. To know that, I'm, 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.960 you know, a boring, middle aged white guy who's probably 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:43.560 going to see the Star Wars movie. Probably, I mean 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:46.959 I would have paid you for definitely, Okay, I mean 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.520 it's seven days away, dude, It is seven days away 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:54.640 as we record. That can so so at any rate? Yeah, exactly, 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.640 Like the companies like, that's how much your information is 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.640 worth to them. So to you, it's in the thousands 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.719 of dollars. To them, it doesn't even equal a penny 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:05.920 for the but in the aggregate, right, it's gonna be 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.680 worth so much more. Well, exactly because because when a 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:12.680 company is buying information, they're not buying one person's information. 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.839 They're buying bundles of thousands upon thousands of people's information. 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:22.760 Then it's that company's job to either sell that information 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.400 off to someone else. These are data brokers. This is 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.200 all they do. That's that's their job. That's their business. 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:33.240 They buy and sell info. They don't make stuff, they 0:13:33.280 --> 0:13:36.840 don't provide any services. They aggregate data and sell it 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.360 off to other people. This is a fascinating part of 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.280 this whole thing to me, Jonathan, because it's like they're 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:48.679 these companies are really I mean, they're they're kind of 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.600 like in the shadows, you know, they're they're they're like 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:57.080 companies with like weird names that that that have you know, 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.200 data centers in in in the middle of nowhere, and 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.120 they're really hard to find. And you you know, I 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:04.880 mean you and I probably both remember the days of 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.920 like do not call me at home, you know, getting 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.840 getting that phone call from marketers the pre do not 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.559 call list days, right, And we don't really have a 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.559 do not call list for data yet. Right. We have 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:19.480 some tools, but we don't really have that. And I 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.120 feel like we're in this kind of um, I don't 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.600 know gold rush on data exactly. We don't have We 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.880 don't have the power to say here is what you 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:32.840 can use my data to do, and here is what 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:36.400 you cannot use my data to do. Uh. You know, 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.920 if you're lucky you will be or if you're very 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.520 um you know, careful and you're and you're paying really 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.360 close attention, then you might use services where you're looking 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.280 at the user agreement and looking to see do they 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.400 have a policy? Do they do they specifically state they 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:56.160 will not share your information with third parties. Um, you 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:59.280 know you can find some of those, but honestly, that's 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.520 not the way bus this works. For most of these companies. 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.320 You are the product, right, like like Google when the 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.880 service is free. Yep, you're the one product. That's that's 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.960 what Google, your Google's product, your Facebook product, you are 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:20.280 what they are selling to other other interested parties. And uh, 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.160 even if you look at ones that say that, oh, 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.200 don't worry, we scrub all the identifiable stuff from your day. 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.720 Animize your data if you will. Yeah, that, Um, that 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:35.680 don't work so good, Ben, it doesn't work very good. 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:38.440 There have been studies about this in the last few years, right, 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:39.840 I think there was a study that came out of 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.720 the UK that suggested, um that really in order to 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:48.600 identify a person, um, you really only needed like one 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:51.320 or two pieces of information about them. Right. Do you 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.080 remember that study that came out in the last I 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.240 don't know year or so. It was like, I remember 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:59.240 that one. And there's one that Latania Sweeney Harvard she 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:03.080 did one or she proved that with three points of data, 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.280 which was gender, birth date, and ZIP code, she could 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:14.520 identify of US residents. So so nearly of all people 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:16.920 living in the United States she could identify just with 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.760 those three pieces of information. That One of the things 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:22.960 I like to stress to people is your name, which 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.000 you try to protect when you are when you think 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:27.960 you're being anonymous on the Internet and you use a handle, 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:30.160 so you're not using your name like I use my 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:34.200 name everywhere as my handle. That's just but most of 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:35.960 the time, but a lot of people like, no, I'm 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.400 going to use an anonymous handle. Your name is the 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.080 least important thing about you. I hate to break it 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.280 to you that because honestly, most of these companies don't care. 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:48.480 Just like I was saying, the shop owner with the 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.160 ice cream doesn't care who you are. Most of these 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.880 companies don't really care who you are. They care about 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:59.680 what you do. Yeah, and it's really interesting too, Like Google, 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.960 for instance, leverages large amounts of money and even some 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.879 of their best algorithmic computing power to make sure that 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:11.760 advertisers and marketers, for instance, don't engage in dishonest practices 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.840 or break Google's own rules about tracking data. And even 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:20.040 for Google, this is becoming like a herculean task. We 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.520 I talked to in for Cobreaker, I talked to some 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:29.119 people at Columbia's, some Columbia grad students who are studying this, 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.520 and it's really interesting to see what gets pulled from 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:38.040 even like emails that you might send in Gmail, for instance. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:41.879 this is this is kind of um, kind of terrifying. 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.320 Also if you if you think about because you think 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:47.879 of email as being this this uh, private means of 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.800 communication that you know, just as you wouldn't expect someone 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.639 else to read your snail mail. That would be a 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.479 violation of trust to find out that stuff is popping 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.360 up based on things that you've typed. Like if you've 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.800 written an email recently and then something that is related 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.479 to that email starts seemingly to pop up in places 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.120 you weren't expecting, you might think at first that that's 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.360 a weird coincidence. But if this happens a few times, like, Okay, 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.560 this is not a coincidence. What is going on? Yeah, 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:19.840 it's really interesting. And I think that's something, Jonathan, that 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.280 so many people can relate to, right, this idea of like, 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.160 oh I looked at those shoes once, or I looked 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:31.080 at uh, you know, whatever, the whatever item that you 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:36.600 might buy online once and that advertisement follows you around forever. Right, Yeah, 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.720 you had that great moment and codebreaker in fact, about 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:46.880 the sandals. Yes, the sandals that followed Molly around. Every 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.840 time I logged into Facebook for a straight week, they 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.159 would pop up. And I was so scared because I 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.200 was like, oh my god, I'm gonna be sitting next 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:56.119 to my boyfriend and I'm gonna log onto Facebook and 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.600 these sandals are gonna come up, and it's gonna reopen 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:00.639 the wound. And he's gonna know that I was sending 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.679 them to people asking for an opinion. Did you change 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.720 your behavior when you were hanging out with him? Yeah, 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:11.280 Like if we were loafing around, I would open so 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:16.760 many tabs and none of them would be Facebook. This 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.480 is a really funny story. What does it make you 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.280 think about? It made me wish that I could go 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.760 back to the days where Facebook was just showing me 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.520 things that I wanted to buy and not things that 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:32.240 I wanted to run away from. That's that's such a 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.080 I mean, I've seen the same sort of stuff, and 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:39.480 I've seen advertisements that it's odd, like things that do 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.760 not interest me at all. They're just completely off base 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:45.760 and I can't It's one of those things where I think, well, 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:48.800 maybe now, it's just that the system hasn't gathered enough 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.280 information about me to get a good feel, right, so 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.400 I'm seeing stuff. It's like, this is the shotgun approach. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:59.000 I'm throwing everything I can and hopefully stuff will work. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.840 We'll be back to talk more about the evils of 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:15.000 data tracking after these messages. Systems like Facebook, for example, 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.280 where you can actually go in to an ad and 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:23.120 say I am not interested in this, you know, then 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.800 maybe you'll end up getting a different selection of stuff, 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:29.239 but sometimes you'll just get different versions of the same thing. 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.040 You already said, that's not that's not me man. I 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.040 appreciate the muscles on this dude, but I Am not 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.920 going to be that guy. So I'm into I'm into 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.800 my little pony. But I I think I've outgrown it. 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:48.040 I look my collection, My collection can only be so complete. 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:50.880 That's you know, there's you gotta draw the line after 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.560 like series five, I gotta say I'm done. I have 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:57.719 no more shelf space. Um yeah, this is this is 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:03.680 one of those those amazing stories, like the story about 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.480 the sandals. Just just one of those things that has 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.840 happened to pretty much anyone who has been active online 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.720 over the last couple of years. And it's probably one 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.439 of those stories I would imagine that people start to share, 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:21.760 not realizing that this is something that other people have experienced. Yeah, yeah, right, 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.560 it is. It feels like a very personal experience, but 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.240 it's something that seems to happen to everyone, and it 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.800 was interesting to see. Relatively recently, Facebook, I believe um 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:37.240 made it easier for people to control how much of 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:42.840 their ex girlfriend or boyfriend or significant others information surfaced 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.480 on their own timeline. Did you see that story that 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.360 came out relatively recently. He was interesting this idea that like, 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.280 you know, you know, even the tech companies they're really 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.680 really good at data tracking at this point, are still 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:01.440 trying to figure out when it goes wrong and how 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:06.240 to help the user in some cases, um make it 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:10.960 a more kind of custom experience, right. And and we 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.160 should also stress that that the overwhelming majority of companies 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:18.560 out there do not want it to go wrong, because 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.199 that's that's counterproductive to what the end end goal is, 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.680 at least for the person that actually bought the advertisement 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:29.200 and the person who owns the place where that ad 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:32.240 is being shown in the case of targeted advertising, at 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.280 least like they don't want that to go badly. But 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:36.800 in other cases, you know, they don't want to go 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:41.520 badly either, that that's counterproductive. But it is possible for 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.800 this to go wrong even if everyone is trying to 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:50.720 use it to to people's benefit. And on Codebreaker, you 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:55.879 had a heartbreaking story about about a father who shared 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.480 some information not not knowing, not even realizing that that 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:01.919 information was somehow going to make its way into a 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.760 database and then came back to haunt him. Yeah, this 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:09.360 guy Mike Say, and and this is happened a few 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:14.920 years back. He you know, unfortunately, um, his his one 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:17.760 of his children, his daughter died in a car accident. 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:22.480 And he went to buy some uh you know, he 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:27.080 went to buy some some actually some some um some 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:30.480 stuff for photos, like he was putting together some photo albums, 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.080 and he went to buy some frames for those photos. 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:37.360 And the place that he called to do that, um, 0:23:37.720 --> 0:23:42.080 he just in passing mentioned uh that his daughter had 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:44.199 died in this car accident. And the person that he 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:48.760 was talking to actually took down that information. And it's 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:53.000 still not clear how it how all of this happened, 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:57.520 but apparently they took down the information and that information 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:00.359 ended up getting sold to a data broker that's sold 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:04.440 the information from the company he originally called to Office Max, 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:10.679 and then Office Max sent a letter to him. Um 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:16.080 there was addressed to owner of the house or Mike 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:20.840 Say daughter died in a car accident. Um. And that's 0:24:20.840 --> 0:24:25.800 when it goes really really wrong, right. The picture frames 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.600 that was was buying with through my children. In the 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:32.760 bottom it had Ashley's name and her birth and death 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:35.359 date and that she loved them, and you know what 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:39.480