If you ever wondered how much your personal information that Gmail collects would worth, one rough figure could be $9.00/month. Google took in $37.9 billion in revenue in 2011, and $36.5 billion was from ads. According to an NBC News article, if Google stops collecting personal information, therefore they lose their advertisement income, all the Gmail users will have to pay 9 dollars per month to cover that loss.
A couple days ago (March 26, 2012), the FTC called for industry to develop a voluntary mechanism to let consumers signal they don’t want their data collected by online companies. Bloomberg Businessweek says that Leibowitz (current FTC Chairman) foresees there will be a certain type of tangible "Do-Not-Track" options will be available to consumers in 2012.
Although I support this privacy protection mechanism, and there is no doubt that every individual has to be informed about the data that is being collected about her/himself, I am still wondering what the flashback would be if Gmail, Facebook begin to ask us to pay monthly charges, and also wondering what percentage of people would be willing to pay for the services.
Many may still let the online companies collect their personal information. If Gmail alone charges 9 dollars per month, to opt out from Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many other will cost several times more than that. I wonder how many people will be happy to pay another bunch of utility bills when they get the same service as before while the leak of personal information is not visible, or does not make their lives unreasonably uncomfortable (although it can be somewhat creepy sometimes).
If the implementation of this mechanism becomes a mandatory requirement for the business, the wordings on their data sharing terms and conditions (in exchange of user info) will be very interesting things to pay attention to along with the user responses.
I would definitely not want to pay $9 a month for gmail. We're so used to it being free that we expect it. Plus, it's not even really "free" because we pay them in personal information.
ReplyDeleteSo eventually people with enough money may pay the amount to protect their privacy and people who cannot afford it have no choice... such is LIFE!! :(
DeleteI completely agree with you. I doubt that people are willing to pay $9 a month to use Gmail. From my understanding on analytics and website tracking, all of the data collected is anonymous. So yes, Google tracks everything you're doing, but Google knows "you" as a number or anonymous individual rather than John Smith, Esq.
ReplyDeleteI found this article that kind of turns the whole debate on its head. What would happen if Google offered to pay users for non-anonymous access to their data and activities? http://www.geekosystem.com/google-screenwise/
it is a very interesting article! thnx for sharing! :)
DeleteWhile I would be outraged to pay $9 a month, I don't think it would deter people from using gmail. It reminds me of the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago in class regarding Facebook/Google +. We continue to use these services because we are already connected to it and so are our friends. It would be too much of a hassle to switch email providers (at least in my opinion). Obviously there would be a "backlash" against Google if they started to charge, but to what extent will that "backlash" entail? I doubt many people would be willing or want to take the time to change email carriers.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I will try to change the e-mail carrier... The only problem of mine will be all the friends around world connected to my g-chat.. grr
DeleteWait, are you telling me companies don't spend billions of dollars developing a world-spanning series of applications just to give them to us for free? Surely, you jest.
ReplyDeleteI agree, but the real issue is that we have not really informed what data they are mining about us and how they use it. I hope this move could bring some transparency to the field. :)
DeleteHmm... I pay google and gmail extra to store all my extra mail. You'd be surprised. We've grown so reliant. But good topic for today's discussion in class.
ReplyDelete