Privacy isn’t Comfortable

Because, how my field of study is tied to computer science I do feel like I think about this type of question much more than the average person does. I and many individuals give up more information about themselves than they realize. This is how businesses and corporations work, they do what they can to build up trust with you so you feel comfortable to willingly give up this information. Then they can use this information to better advertise and cater to you so you keep coming back to them.  Currently, I’m taking a class in customer relations, a chunk of it is about how businesses collect this information and how they can use it.  One of the ways they do this is by giving a financial incentive, let’s say they give you 50% off on your next purchase if you sign up with them which may include entering your e-mail, phone number, and address. Or some companies will lock aspects of their website behind giving them access to cookies, which is the information about what you’re doing on a particular site.

              Like I’ve said before I am no different from the average person because, in everything I’ve talked about, I fall for the same tricks. Even with my computer science and business knowledge, I know how and why they’re collecting this information and I still don’t protect myself against it as much as I probably could and should. Because it would make my life more difficult, that is what it would come down to for me and many others.  I know that smartphone manufacturers gather tons of data on their users even their location, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to sell my phone and get a “dumb” phone to keep them from tracking me. I know Microsoft can track everything I do on my Windows computer but that doesn’t mean I’m going to boot up a virtual machine every time I want to use it. In the same way that despite of what I’ve told you and countless sources saying the same, or how there’s a chance that Alexa and Google Home could always be listening to you. You are not going to get rid of these things because if you did, it would make your life that much less comfortable, and you like myself are going to prioritize that over the maximum amount of privacy that you can have

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