By Sarah Purvis (BComm/LLB III)
Ever seen ads for products you’ve literally just clicked away minutes ago, floating on your Facebook feed? Or suddenly flooded by cheap flights to Bali in Gmail and across a bevy of other websites after looking them up? This is the world of digital marketing, where every click, tap and hover are recorded and sold to advertisers. This practice provokes a number of concerning questions: how do the likes of these multinational corporations, Facebook, Google, etc, know what you’re doing? Is it bad that they know, or are there hidden benefits to it as well? And finally – what are the regulations and the countermeasures that you can put in place to protect yourself?
How do they know what you’re doing?
Whenever you reach a website, it will often ask to read your cookies. Cookies are small text files in your computer, and when websites ask to read them, they are asking for the server to remember and identify you in order to track what you are doing. Something to remember is that a site only knows the information you provide on their particular site.
Is this a bad thing?
It really depends on what you want to do with that information! The most that cookies reveal are profiles of your interests, spending habits and lifestyle. It makes your life easier as cookies allow websites to remember what was in your virtual shopping cart, so that you can return to it even after you’ve closed the browser. It also allows websites to understand your behaviour, so that they can send you ads that are relevant to your interests. This means that Google will try to serve ads that match your preferences, making it more likely for you to return to websites that you’ve shown interest in.
If you are concerned about your privacy, there is always the option to clear cookies and cache as frequently as you wish. Subsequently, it would take longer to assess new websites and the visited sites will no longer store your information for memory purposes, but it’s up to you to decide how you like the trade off.
Current legislation and regulation
In 2012, the Privacy Amendment Act was implemented, which included 13 new principles and in essence mandated companies to:
Identify the types of personal information they hold, collect, use and disclose
Amend compliance documentation – privacy policy and collection notifications
Amend contracts
Train staff and engineer compliance into their systems
However, this is only applicable to entities that generally have a large annual turnover ($3 million or more).
Something else to remember is the terms and conditions, and privacy policies that companies place on their websites. Even if you don’t read them, they do apply to you and your behaviour.
How can you protect yourself?
One way to stop information from being stored on your computer, or to stop websites from collecting cookies, is to use incognito mode. However, it isn’t the godsend that people think it is. Your browsing activity is still visible to the websites you visit, and to the networks that you access the internet through, such as your wifi provider. Incognito mode doesn’t encrypt your information, and data such as your geolocation is still available to websites, so there is no guarantee of absolute privacy.
Feeling a bit worried about your data? It’s important to remember that only YOU have control over it – information is collected only if you choose to visit and use the websites. However, all of these rules change regularly, so it’s important to keep abreast of how your online presence, and the websites that collect information about you, change as new technology continues to roll out.