Make no mistake, your personal data isn’t your own. When you update your Facebook page, “Like” something on a website, apply for a credit card, click on an ad, listen to an MP3, or comment on a Youtube video, you are feeding a huge and growing beast with an insatiable appetite for your personal data, a beast that always craves more. Virtually every piece of personal information that you provide online (and much that you provide offline) will end up being bought and sold, segmented, packaged, analyzed, repackaged, and sold again.
The “personal data economy” comprises a menagerie of advertisers, marketers, ad networks, data brokers, website publishers, social networks, and online tracking and targeting companies, for all of which the main currency—what they buy, sell, and trade—is personal data.
Their…
