Looking At The Bigger Picture

Reading the Works

It appears that surveillance has found a great way of helping companies getting information off of consumer usage. They are using these tools to closely monitor their consumers so they can continue to thrive in their profit margins. This week we read 2 articles. Both show different perspectives of how campanile gain and use this data they collect. The article containing Christine Utz showed their experiments to gain meaningful data from their consumers. That requires the act of thought. The next article written by Stephanie Vie spoke on casual gamers. She and her colleagues show through consumers gaming choices how they are being sourced for information.

What Are We Facing?

Stephanie Vie looks at when it comes to mobile gaming, how it opens up clear opportunity for companies to gain data. This is not illegal, but is in question because of the way we expect privacy. Going back to unit one on privacy we spoke about the fine print. Consumers typically do not like reading the fine print as it can be annoying. This was mentioned by Utz. They wanted to clarify if it was possible to consumers to not be annoyed, but to give their best answers with a conscious decision. Two, in Candy Crush, their user agreement collects your information and you typically connects consumers to their server. Now they are able to tell when you play, how you play, and what other things they may suggest to you as the consumer.

Where Does This Lead?

The honest truth is we do to know. It can be impossible to see the many different solutions and possibilities these companies can gain from consumer usage. They are able to create new ideas off of consumer based numbers. Companies are able to watch everything to add to these numbers. This relates to my presentation reading this week. These algorithms being used with this data is only creating numbers and figures based off of results that seem to be positive. They are not factoring in different circumstances people may be in. Law enforcement uses this to determine who and what they should police. Gamers are used to recommend new game ideas and specs.