WEBVTT - The Evils of Data Tracking 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:13.280 With technology with tex Stuff. Hey there, and welcome to 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.200 tex Stuff. I am your host, Jonathan Strickland, and today 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:22.000 I have a very special guest as a guest co 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:28.040 host of this episode, then Johnson Marketplace dot Org. Welcome Ben. Hey, 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:30.080 how's it going, Jonathan, It's great. Now I have a 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.720 question for you before we get into the topic of 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:37.440 the day. I got to chance to be a guest 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:41.040 host on a show you host called code Breaker, And 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.960 on code Breaker when we talked, I made a reference 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.880 to Shakespeare. Yes. Now my question for you is, are 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:53.959 you ever confused with the seventeenth century British playwright Ben Johnson. 0:00:54.680 --> 0:01:00.000 Oh man all the time, yapens all the time, embarrassing. Yeah, 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.760 I've been you know, I have been to Stratford upon Avon. 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.400 I have done that whole thing, and and and I 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:11.119 used to you know, I never get confused for that 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.559 Ben Johnson. But in the past, at least people made 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.600 jokes about steroids because of the other Ben Johnson. Nadian 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.400 Runner and I used to have a T shirt that 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.160 said I'm not on steroids, but thanks for asking, which 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:27.080 was a kind of inside joke among my friends. But 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.080 it was, um, you know, I've never been. No, I've 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.960 never been that poetic. I've never been that good at sonnets, 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:38.039 so usually I'm not not confused. It's it's sad. It's 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:42.080 really funny because, uh, I'm in in an upcoming episode 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:44.480 of tech stuff. I'm going to have my friend i 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:49.840 as actar from on and his his Twitter handle is 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.360 at i as, so he gets a lot of hip 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:58.520 hop and rap questions. So yeah, it's like, not so much. 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:01.400 I I'm okay with that. But the reason I have 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.040 been on today is because we're doing something kind of 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:08.200 a complementary episode to the Codebreaker episode I was on, 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.280 which was all about data tracking and data mining, and 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:15.280 to kind of talk about what that is, what it's 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.919 used for, what is the best case scenario, like what 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.320 why do we want it? And what are some really 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.520 really good reasons why we may not want it, despite 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:29.240 the fact that at this point it's here to stay. 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.760 I think a spoiler alert, data tracking is not going away, 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:38.920 right until the sort of posted post apocalyptic world sent 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.680 until we're all in um fallout for world whatever it is, 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.799 or or we reached singularity and we're sharing the same 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.120 consciousness anyway, right Yeah, and then it doesn't matter there's 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:52.480 no such thing as an individual at that point, so 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.359 until then we're stuck with it. So data tracking and 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.040 data mining, these are terms that kind of relate to 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.200 another buzz term that you've probably heard over and over again, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.960 which is big data. Um. And the reason why we're 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:11.040 even talking about this at all is because information has value, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:16.600 but it's hard to pin down exactly what the value 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.080 is because it may be very different from one person 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.320 to another, or between the individual whose data it is 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:29.160 and some other organization or a chain of organizations, and 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:35.839 the whole thing gets really messy. And uh yeah, we'll 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:40.440 be talking about information and information about information like metadata. 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.600 I mean this, it becomes a rabbit hole that you 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.400 can easily get lost in as you start to try 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.600 and unravel everything and figure out, okay, well, what's the 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.240 heart of this story. And to be fair, data trekking 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.680 is something that's been going on for ages. It's not new. 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.560 It's just that the Internet and the rules we use 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:06.840 today allow us to generate, gather, and sift through more 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.520 information than we've ever been able to do before. It's 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.800 kind of a catch all phrase, right, Jonathan, It's it's 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.160 this kind of catch all phrase for for computers in 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:21.360 software to build a really comprehensive um data profile about 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.640 you in some ways. But it's something that credit card 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.040 companies and banks and advertisers have endeavored to do for 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.919 decades exactly, I mean. And this can be done for 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.039 very simple, quote unquote innocent reasons. Like one of the 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.280 examples I like to say is you might have a 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.760 shop and you in your shop, you sell ice cream, 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.440 and you pay attention to see which flavors of ice 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.840 cream sell the best, and that informs you of which 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:49.800 flavors of ice cream you need to stock up on. 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.000 You are tracking the data of sales. In this case, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.240 you're not necessarily looking at individuals. You don't care who 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.480 it is that buys the vanilla, but if everyone's buying vanilla, 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.440 you want to make sure you have more vanilla than 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.320 the other flavors that aren't selling as well. So that's 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:08.080 one that's like the very simplest version of data tracking 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.120 there where you know you've scrubbed the identity of the individuals, 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.560 that's not even that doesn't even come up, it's not important. 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.479 But it can go all the way to the other extreme, 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.560 where you want to create targeted advertising. That is going 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.680 to appeal to each specific person that visits a particular 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.840 site or use as a particular service, and the whole 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.479 point of that is to attempt to get them to 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.960 buy something or to enroll in something. It's it's the 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.359 goal of all advertising. It's to get you to act 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.040 in a certain way. And the idea is that, well, 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.960 if we can narrow the target down to the most 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:53.440 likely candidates, will get a better return on our efforts. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.280 And this is theoretically good for the user, right Jonathan. 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.719 Theoretically it's it's sort of like, we want to give 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:02.080 you the thing that you really want, and we want 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.080 to give it to you in the most efficient way 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.640 and in the most sort of sympatico way with with 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.960 what you are interested in doing already. Um, but it 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:14.880 can sort of like data tracting to me means so 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:19.120 many things, Jonathan, Right. It means your online browsing behavior, 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.520 or the things you choose to buy, the platforms, the 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.799 software you use, the things you download, your name, age, race, 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:31.719 sexual orientation, when you're sick, what what you're sick with, 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:36.520 your eating habits, your television watching habits, your fears, hopes, dreams. 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.159 Right when it really means so many things when you're awake, 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.679 when you're asleep. I mean, like we we're talking about 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.760 a world now where where we we want these wearables. 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.560 They could give us real time data feedback on how 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.720 we are doing throughout the day. Maybe you are an 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.400 extreme type a personality and you are trying to schedule 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.120 your day so that when you're hitting those peak moments 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.840 of productivity, that's when you're tackling the most important tasks 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.520 to you, and you're wearing wearables, you're getting that feedback 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:07.320 and you're understanding all this stuff. That data may also 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.720 be going to other places and there may not be 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.720 any use for it right now. Like right now, as 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.840 you're generating that data, that's fine, no one's looking at it. 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.000 But down the road that might not be the case 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:23.360 for various reasons, some of which are terrifying. But but 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:25.400 you know, you were talking about the different types of data. 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.520 There are actually three kind of broad categories we can 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:33.760 classify the data that we are creating that that various 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:38.440 entities are really interested in. There's there's volunteered data, and 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.080 that's the stuff we share, right that's when we go 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.000 on facebooks exactly if that's my tweets, your tweets, your 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:48.480 your YouTube's, your facebooks, your Pinterests, it's it's the stuff 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.440 where we are participating in the conversation and generating that information. 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.520 We're not just doing that for the people that we 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.920 are trying to impress or our friends or sometimes are 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.800 enemies if we want to rub their noses and stuff 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.560 because they think they're so big. But that's that's the 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:11.720 stuff that we are actively sharing. Then there's the observed data. 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.880 That's the stuff that companies and other entities can can 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.880 figure out about us just by watching our behavior. So 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.080 this would be kind of the stuff we buy, the 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:25.120 browsing habits we have where we log in from. Like 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.000 if you are doing most of your browsing on a 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.680 mobile device, you better bet there their companies out there 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:32.880 that want to know that. They want to know that 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.120 you access stuff on your phone more than you do 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:40.480 on a laptop or desktop. That's important information. And then 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.800 there's the inferred data, and that's the stuff that companies 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:48.120 guess is relevant to you based upon the information they 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.400 gather from the other two types of sources. And it's 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.440 it's this collection that's important. And you know I mentioned 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.679 about value and how value is different for different people. 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.200 So the Telegraph did a survey UH, in which they 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:08.920 asked people what they felt their personal information was worth 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:14.200 to them personally, Like, what is your identity worth to you? Uh? 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.880 Based upon the kind of information to get shared around 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.360 these entities? Can you make a ballpark? Guess I'll tell 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:26.000 you this. It's it's it's less than ten thousand dollars, 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:31.440 but it's more than five dollars. Man, man, I'm gonna 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.680 go with I'm gonna go with twenty bucks or no, no, no, eight, wait, 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.560 hundred bucks. You know it's probably because we share so 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:42.560 much ben that we value it so little. But the 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:47.080 average person five thousand dollars. Oh well, that's good. That 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.079 that makes and that makes the average person a lot 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.120 smarter than me. But to be fair, it was three 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:57.400 thousand two pounds sterling. But I did the conversion. Yeah, 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.079 and and uh. And they also mentioned the fact that, 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:04.440 um that while they were doing this, they they found 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.840 that there was a disparity that that women in the 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:12.960 survey tended to answer more frequently that their personal information 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.480 was priceless, that there was no price you could put 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:19.080 on it that they would feel comfortable selling it. And 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.000 men were less likely to do that. They also said 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.840 an interesting data point, if you will, Yeah, I also 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.720 mentioned that older people were less likely to want to 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.520 sell their information than younger people, which kind of young 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:33.800 younger people are just giving it away. Yeah they are, 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:35.880 I mean they you know, we're seeing that more and 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:41.400 more with the the the very cavalier behavior of certain 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.080 executives like Zuckerberg who have said that privacy is dead. No, 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.000 privacy is no longer a thing. That seems to be 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:53.880 kind of the message that younger generations have not only 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.440 absorbed but adopted at least to some extent. Say you 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:02.120 and I asked old kajure, so we claim, yeah, no, 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:06.240 if your generation X or older, you're like, get your dirty, 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:10.520 grubby hands off my personal information, you damn millennial, right, 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.800 so now here, that's so, that's how much the person 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.959 values their personal information in the thousands of dollars range. Okay, 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:19.760 I know what you're gonna do next, Right, You're gonna 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.920 give me the average company's value on our data. Ye's 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.360 gonnas exactly what's gonna happen? So here's the deal. Your 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.880 personal information to a company at best, like at its 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:36.240 peak for average amount of information. I'm not talking about 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.959 very specialized stuff like if you were talking about that 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.040 wearable example. I was saying earlier that would that would 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.600 be worth more because it's more comprehensive data. But you're 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.160 average stuff, like you're the stuff you might find on 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:53.520 a Facebook profile page. It is worth point zero zero 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:59.080 five dollars. So half a cent is how much your 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.400 data is. We're at at the peak average is closer 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:08.319 to point zero zero zero five dollars. To know that. 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:12.400 I'm you know, a boring, middle aged white guy who's 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:18.120 probably going to see the Star Wars movie probably, I 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.520 mean I would have paid you for definitely, Okay, I 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.040 mean it's seven days away, dude, it is seven days 0:12:24.080 --> 0:12:29.360 away as we record that. So so at any rate, yeah, exactly, 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.240 Like the company is like, that's how much your information 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.920 is worth to them, So to you, it's in the 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.559 thousands of dollars. To them, it doesn't even equal a 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.599 penny for the but an aggregate, right, it's gonna be 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.439 worth so much more. Well, exactly because because when a 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:47.400 company is buying information, they're not buying one person's information. 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:52.560 They're buying bundles of thousands upon thousands of people's information. 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.520 Then it's that company's job to either sell that information 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.160 off to someone else. These are data brokers. This is 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:04.000 all they do. That's that's their job. That's their business. 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:08.040 They buy and sell info. They don't make stuff, they 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.559 don't provide any services. They aggregate data and sell it 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.079 off to other people. This is a fascinating part of 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.080 this whole thing to me, Jonathan, because it's like they're 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:23.360 these companies are really I mean, they're they're kind of 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.360 like in the shadows, you know, they're they're they're like 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.800 companies with like weird names that that that have you know, 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.760 data centers in in in the middle of nowhere, and 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:36.719 and they're really hard to find. And you you know, 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.520 I mean you and I probably both remember the days 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.199 of like do not call me at home, you know, 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.400 getting getting that phone call from marketers, the pre do 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.000 not call list days. Right, And we don't really have 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:52.040 a do not call list for data yet, right. We 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:54.120 have some tools, but we don't really have that. And 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.599 I feel like we're in this kind of um, I 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.439 don't know, gold rush on data exactly. We don't have 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.400 we don't have the power to say here is what 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.439 you can use my data to do, and here is 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.120 what you cannot use my data to do. Uh. You know, 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.679 if you're lucky, you will be or if you're very 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.280 um you know, careful, and you're and you're paying really 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.120 close attention, then you might use services where you're looking 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.000 at the user agreement and looking to see do they 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.120 have a policy? Do they do they specifically state they 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.880 will not share your information with third parties. Um, you 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.080 know you can find some of those, but honestly, that's 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.240 not the way business works for most of these companies. 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:41.760 You are the product, right, like like Google is free. Yep, 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:46.680 you're the one the product. That's that's what Google, your 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.240 Google's product, your Facebook product. You are what they are 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:55.880 selling to other other interested parties. And uh, even if 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.440 you look at ones that say that, oh, don't worry, 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:02.640 we scrub all the identifiable stuff from your day, animize 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.880 your data if you will. Yeah, that, Um, that don't 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:10.880 work so good, Ben, it doesn't work very good. There 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.200 have been studies about this in the last few years, right. 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:14.600 I think there was a study that came out of 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:18.480 the UK that suggested, um that really in order to 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:23.360 identify a person, um, you really only needed like one 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:26.080 or two pieces of information about them, right, Do you 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:27.880 remember that study that came out in the last I 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.000 don't know year or so. It was like, I remember 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.960 that one. And there's one that Latania Sweeney Harvard she 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.840 did one where she proved that with three points of data, 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:42.080 which was gender, birth date, and ZIP code, she could 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:49.320 identify of US residents. So so nearly of all people 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.680 living in the United States she could identify just with 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:55.480 those three pieces of information. That One of the things 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:57.720 I like to stress to people is your name, which 0:15:57.760 --> 0:15:59.720 you try to protect when you are when you think 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.760 you're being anonymous on the Internet and you use a handle, 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:04.920 so you're not using your name like I use my 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.960 name everywhere as my handle. That's just but most of 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:10.760 the time, but a lot of people like, no, I'm 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.120 going to use an anonymous handle. Your name is the 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.800 least important thing about you. I hate to break it 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:21.040 to you that because honestly, most of these companies don't care. 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:23.240 Just like I was saying, the shop owner with the 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:25.920 ice cream doesn't care who you are. Most of these 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.640 companies don't really care who you are. They care about 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:34.440 what you do. Yeah, and it's really interesting too, Like Google, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.680 for instance, leverages large amounts of money and even some 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.640 of their best algorithmic computing power to make sure that 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:46.520 advertisers and marketers, for instance, don't engage in dishonest practices 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:51.560 or break Google's own rules about tracking data. And even 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.760 for Google, this is becoming like a herculean task. We 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.280 I talked to in for Cobreaker, I talked to some 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:03.800 people at Columbia's and Columbia grad students who are studying this, 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.240 and it's really interesting to see what gets pulled from 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:12.720 even like emails that you might send in Gmail, for instance. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:16.600 this is this is kind of um, kind of terrifying. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.080 Also if you if you think about because you think 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.600 of email as being this this uh, private means of 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.560 communication that you know, just as you wouldn't expect someone 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.240 else to read your snail mail, that that would be 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.840 a violation of trust to find out that stuff is 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:34.959 popping up based on things that you've typed. Like if 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.080 you've written an email recently and then something that is 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.800 related to that email starts seemingly to pop up in 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:43.639 places you weren't expecting, you might think at first that 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.200 that's a weird coincidence. But if this happens a few 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.040 times like, Okay, this is not a coincidence. What is 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:54.520 going on? Yeah, it's really interesting. I think that's something Jonathan, 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.320 that so many people can relate to, right, this idea 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.399 of like, oh I looked at this use once or 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.720 I looked at you know, whatever, the whatever item that 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.560 you might buy online once and that advertisement follows you 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.560 around forever. Yeah, you had that great moment and codebreaker 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:19.400 in fact, about the sandals. Yes, the sandals that followed 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.320 Molly around. Every time I logged into Facebook for a 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.080 straight week, they would pop up, and I was so 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:28.480 scared because I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:30.120 be sitting next to my boyfriend and I'm gonna log 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.159 onto Facebook and these sandals are going to come up, 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.520 and it's gonna reopen the wound, and he's going to 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.280 know that I was sending them to people asking for 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:41.119 an opinion. Did you change your behavior when you were 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.040 hanging out with him? Yeah, Like if we were loafing around, 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.800 I would open so many tabs and none of them 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:52.680 would be Facebook. This is a really funny story. What 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:55.080 does it make you think about? It made me wish 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:59.560 that I could go back to the days where Facebook 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.000 was just showing me things that I wanted to buy 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:04.680 and not things that I wanted to run away from. 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.080 That's uh, that's such a I mean, I've seen the 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:13.320 same sort of stuff and I've seen advertisements that it's odd, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.160 like things that do not interest me at all. They're 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.639 just completely off base and I can't It's one of 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:21.440 those things where I think, well, maybe now, it's just 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:25.280 that the system hasn't gathered enough information about me to 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.520 get a good feel right, So I'm seeing stuff. It's 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:31.280 like this is the shotgun approach. I'm throwing everything I 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:35.400 can and hopefully stuff will work. Uh. Systems like Facebook, 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.240 for example, where you can actually go in to an 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:43.280 ad and say I am not interested in this, you know, 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.720 then maybe you'll end up getting a different selection of stuff, 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.000 but sometimes you'll just get different versions of the same 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.640 thing you already said. Uh, that's not it's not me man. 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.640 I appreciate the muscles on this dude, but I am 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.560 not going to be that guy. So I'm into I'm 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.680 into my little pony, but I I think I've outgrown it. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:08.320 I look, my collection, my collection can only be so complete. 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:11.800 That's you know, there's you gotta draw the line after 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:15.480 like series five, I gotta say I'm done. I have 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:18.600 no more shelf space. Um, yeah, this is this is 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:24.600 one of those those amazing stories, like the story about 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.400 the sandals. Just just one of those things that has 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.720 happened to pretty much anyone who has been active online 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.679 over the last couple of years. And it's probably one 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:35.639 of those stories I would imagine that people start to 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.760 share not realizing that this is something that other people 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:44.159 have experienced. Yeah, right, it is. It feels like a 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.880 very personal experience, but it's something that seems to happen 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:51.400 to everyone. And it was interesting to see relatively recently Facebook, 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:56.520 I believe UM made it easier for people to control 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:00.440 how much of their ex girlfriend or a friend or 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:06.480 significant others information surfaced on their own timeline. Did you 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.040 see that story that came out relatively recently. He was 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.680 interesting this idea that like you know, you know, even 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:16.640 the tech companies they're really really good at data tracking 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.280 at this point, are still trying to figure out when 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:24.480 it goes wrong and how to help the user. In 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:30.479 some cases, UM make it a more kind of custom experience, right, 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.880 And and we should also stress that that the overwhelming 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:38.320 majority of companies out there do not want it to 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.119 go wrong, because that's that's counterproductive to what the end 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.439 end goal is, at least for the person that actually 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:49.399 bought the advertisement and the person who owns the place 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:51.920 where that ad is being shown. In the case of 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:55.560 targeted advertising, at least like they don't want that to 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:57.360 go badly. But in other cases, you know, they don't 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:01.440 want to go badly either that that's counterproductive. But it 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:04.480 is possible for this to go wrong even if everyone 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:10.320 is trying to use it to to people's benefit. And 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:15.480 on Codebreaker, you had a heartbreaking story about about a 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.960 father who shared some information, not not knowing, not even 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:22.320 realizing that that information was somehow going to make its 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:26.440 way into a database and then came back to haunt him. Yeah, 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.040 this guy, Mike say, and and this was happened a 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:35.440 few years back. He you know, unfortunately, um his his 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.640 one of his children, his daughter, died in a car accident. 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:43.359 And he went to buy some uh you know, he 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.879 went to buy some some actually some some um some 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.400 stuff for photos, Like he was putting together some photo albums, 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:53.960 and he went to buy some frames for those photos. 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:58.239 And the place that he called to do that Um, 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:03.000 he just in passing men sinned that his daughter had 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:05.080 died in this car accident. And the person that he 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:09.720 was talking to actually took down that information. And it's 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:13.920 still not clear how it how all of this happened, 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:18.400 but apparently they took down the information and that information 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.240 ended up getting sold to a data broker that sold 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:25.280 the information from the company he originally called to Office Max, 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:30.639 and then Office Max sent a letter to him. Um, 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:37.000 there was addressed to owner of the house or Mike, 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:41.760 say daughter died in a car accident. Um, And that's 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:46.720 when it goes really really wrong, right. The picture frames 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:49.480 I was was buying with through my children in the 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:53.680 bottom it had Ashley's name and her birth and death 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:56.280 date and that she loved them, and you know what 0:23:56.320 --> 0:24:00.399 I mean, that's how she the conversation came about that 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:04.480 what is this for? And she took you know, the 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:08.399 information that would go on the bottom and put that, 0:24:08.600 --> 0:24:10.600 you know, on whatever to get it stamp. But they 0:24:10.640 --> 0:24:13.520 had nothing that it didn't say killed in car crashing 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:17.320 out of that that was all on her own. And 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:20.119 this is a totally separate company from Office Max. And 0:24:20.240 --> 0:24:24.280 somehow Office Max got the information they bought the information 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:30.400 from a data group. So that information was sold from 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:35.000