Last updated on May 23rd, 2022 at 07:35 am
Life without the internet can look incomplete and an annoying ordeal. Currently, for the majority of netizens, surfing the web has increased from the activity of satiating curiosity to a medium of getting your daily dopamine spikes. The realms of the internet are restricted not only to the search engines. They also encompass every internet run application right from the recreational apps to social networking platforms.
Therefore the internet looks like a benevolent world which offers a solution to your every need and requirement. But what if I say to you that the internet knows you better than your spouse. It would be best if you felt like I am joking. You enjoy your deepest and closest relationship with your spouse. In a situation like this one should always take measures regarding their safety, this blog will help you do so. A person in front of whom you get naked not only physically but also emotionally. How can the internet know you better than your partner?
Welcome to the dark side of internet usage!
What Does The Internet Know About You?
Each and every activity of yours is recorded and stored on the internet. Your internet searches are stayed on track and monitored, and your internet profile is made on that basis. So the internet knows whether you are a dog person or a cat person. The internet knows your favorite sports and sportsperson. It might look like some harmless details that most people in your friend circle might be aware of. But the data collection of the internet goes beyond these small details. The internet knows:
- Your sleep schedule.
- At what time you crave for a sweet.
- Your fantasies.
- The ailments that you have hidden from others.
- Your number of bank accounts.
- Your favorite music.
- Your dark secrets.
- Your recent location.
And these are just the tip of the iceberg. At first, these might again look like harmless details, but don’t be quick to conclude. Just like your real-world presence, a digital character of yours based on your internet activities has been created by specialized algorithms. When computed together, the data even reveals details about you -unknown to you! And yes, this is a blatantly scary scenario to think about.
Why Is The Internet Interested in you?
We are living in a digital age right now. Your digital presence is not a personal affair anymore, as ideally, it should have been. Every member part of the internet is a source of data. And we are living in a world where data has become an essential commodity. This commodity attracts hoards of money since data is valuable. Countless organizations are working to collect data of every individual and assimilating them together to create a digital character of that individual. And there are millions of other organizations that are buying your numeric character by paying billions of dollars.
But why is your digital character so relevant? The reason being that in today’s world, everyone is identified as a consumer. With the help of your digital habits, the organizations are focussed on providing the most probable link on which you will subconsciously click. The organizations utilize your numeric character for
- Promoting brands and products that interest you.
- Forming your future habits and interests through sequential mind conditioning.
- Manipulating you in believing in a particular ideology.
- Attracting you to join a movement.
So apart from a marketing strategy, the system of data collection is more focused on nurturing the individual to display particular character traits in the future. So along with the game of minting money, data tracking and profiling are shaping the individual itself by providing not only products but also ideas. But how does the internet gather your widely distributed data?
How Does The Internet Tracks You?
Every internet provider assigns a unique IP address to an internet user which acts as their internet address via which they send and receive data. Each IP address can be traced back to its geolocation. Whenever a user accesses an online server or a website, their IP address gets logged on the database of the site server. And this is the first step through which your data profiling initiates. The IP address reveals your location to these online sites and applications. Following are some critical ways through which your crucial information gets recorded on the internet:
- Along with location, the IP address also sends some additional information when registering on a database server. This includes details about your web browser and your device. By analyzing your web browser status and equipment owned, the site managers can draw out conclusions on your economic endowment.
- Websites use ‘cookies’ to identify and verify a user. These cookies are inherently not harmful. But they capture the browsing history of the user, which gets stored on their server. This history, coupled with data from other online activities reflect your subjects of interest.
- Your activities on social networking platforms, along with the data put by you only is studied to enhance your digital profile for the better.
Apart from this, there are professional tracking organizations around the globe that are using highly sophisticated computing technology backed by the latest AI advancements which offer their services to websites in a bid to excel their user engagement. But apart from providing these services, tracking organizations get the data that they can exploit at their will.
Fields like Big Data are exclusively dedicated to extracting, sorting, analyzing the relevant data, and drawing out conclusions based on the prevalent patterns. Though these technological advancements help companies in better marketing and user attraction, if used maliciously, they become a significant cause of worry. There is a saying, ‘nothing on the internet goes hidden,’ and it is true since every activity on the internet is being monitored. So be careful with your web related activities because now you know that the internet knows more about you than your spouse.
