So how do Google and Facebook make their money? From your personal information!
All of those search terms you enter, that information you place on your Facebook wall, those paces you decide to click to are all available to Google and Facebook and the like to store and analyse so they can understand who you are, what you are interested in. As a result, they are able to sell advertising to people who want to sell you something or influence your views in some way. Yes, essentially Google and Facebook make their money off your personal information.
So how can you start to realise some of that value for yourself? You need to start thinking of your information as an Asset. Earlier this year the World Economic Forum published a report entitled "Personal Data: The Emergence of a new Asset Class". The paper acknowledges input from a diverse group of people ranging from employees of a range of major corporations (including Google), educational institutes, and other parties interested in this area.
The paper introduces many concepts and thoughts about the area of Personal Information, including how better use of personal data offers untapped opportunities for socioeconomic growth and how we need to create a balanced ecosystem around personal data to ensure that the interests of all parties are taken account of.
There are also some interested in scenarios and principles presented that are well worth reading to help you understand how different the world could be in the future if we all better managed our personal information within the frameworks presented in this paper.
I cannot do justice to this paper in this post so if you are at all interested in this area, take the time to click here to go to a page where you can download the full paper which is an easy 40 page read. If you want to learn how you can start treating your personal information more as an asset and start to derive some value from it, then I recommend this paper as one of the most useful I have come across. Have a read and I look forward to hearing your thoughts via this Blog.
