Your Browser History Could Be for Sale Soon. Are You Concerned?

At its inception, the Internet drew small groups of nerds under the enchantment of self-actualization. The Internet, they believed, was an Eden of free expression and individuality. That has all changed.

Today, the Internet is more consumptive than creative. Almost every screen we look at now comes with an always-online connection. With this added functionality comes a unique IP address. That IP address is both a lock and a key to everythingwe are online.

Try and imagine a database of you.

Every granule of information about what you like, what you hate, what you ignore and what you dwell on. A list of every website you have ever visited. Every person you mistreated. Your mobile usage and your location data. Every single question you’ve asked Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri.

What can someone with access to that kind of information do?

Congress recently voted to overturn legislation that required broadband providers to get your permission before selling private user data. If President Trump signs the resolution, it’d signal a free-for-all of private information on an unprecedented scale.

Your service provider could sell your personal information to the highest bidder; and not just your demographics, but also your user behavior. That very information is the bedrock of personalized advertising. It’s why companies like Amazon are so successful.

Marketing is an artful act of manipulation. The more a company knows about you, the more imperceptible the illusion. That is the dark side of personalization. Augmented by machine learning and AI, the theater becomes a self-sustaining ecosystem, free of human involvement, and forever operational. A never-ending performance in which you are actor and audience.

Traditional advertising no longers works. Billboards and broadcast commercials yield marginal gains compared to mobile and desktop advertisements. When was the last time you watched advertisements on a TV show? Most people fast forward, flick to another channel, or opt for an ad-free experience by streaming a show.

The data alone is useless. A bunch of bits. AI changed all that. Now there is technology that assiduously turns noise into signal and renders it deployable for companies the world over.

Companies are not the only ones interested in deploying the putative trove of private data just beyond our reach. There is talk of activists raising money through crowdfunding sites to purchase senators' browsing histories.

Cautious users are already adopting VPN services that occlude your Internet activities. Web tools like RuinMyHistory pollute your searches with fake visits to multiple websites. Your browsing history will be adulterated, swamping your private data out of view. But that opens you to another problem: irrelevant advertisements based on inaccurate information. The only thing worse than a deluge of advertisements is a deluge of irrelevant advertisements. PCMag.com has published this list of reviewed VPN services you might like to check out.

"If your car pulls out of your driveway, someone can follow you and see where you are going, how long you are at your destination, and when you are coming back. They might even be able to peek inside your car and learn more about you. With a VPN service, you are essentially driving into a closed parking garage, switching to a different car, and driving out, so that no one who was originally following you knows where you went" - PCMag.com

The reality is that there is no such thing as incognito or privacy mode when browsing the web. We might need to prepare for the fact that having an Internet connection has commoditized our private data. And that it will be weaponized for and against us.

There are also inadvertent risks. The ad-tech industry is prone to leakages, which represent a significant detriment to consumers. We all have secrets. Are yours hiding in your browsing history?

What are your thoughts and outlook about this legislative change?