Saving money by giving up privacy: tradeoffs in the digital age
Would you like to get a financial reward for good behaviour? Who wouldn't? Even bad guys might improve their conduct in exchange for money.
TomTom, a maker of GPS devices, wants to help drive down your car insurance premiums. According to a recent company news release, their new navigation device will alert insurers "to driving events, such as harsh cornering and sharp braking."
Can you imagine "big brother" sitting on your shoulder as you drive? ALL the time! Instead of rates based on where you live or the type of vehicle you drive, insurance premiums would reflect the real you.
You're probably wondering about the bad drivers. Will they pay higher insurance premiums? Or will they improve their driving habits? Fewer annoying drivers could be a bonus!
We all like saving money, but at what price? Will you be lobbying your auto insurer to make a deal with TomTom?
"Big brother" knows a lot more about us than we could possibly have imagined 20 years ago. Facebook and other social networking sites use personal information to attract advertising focused on individual users. Google's vast ability to glean information from our searches, e-mails and more is legendary. However, most of us understand only a small fraction of their capabilities.
It's the equivalent of not having curtains on our windows at night. But most of us don't seem to mind that "big brother" is busy looking while we surf. Effectively, we are "paying" for the privilege of using services like Facebook and Google by providing personal information that can be converted into advertising revenues.
Facebook's upcoming stock offering is said to value the company at $75-$100 billion. That's approximately $100 for EACH Facebook user! By giving up our privacy, in just eight years we've collectively catapulted its 27-year-old founder, who owns 28 per cent of the company, to multi-billionaire status.
There are many other "big brothers" in our daily lives. Loyalty programs at major stores track shopping habits and purchases in exchange for financial rewards. And as we roam from store to store in the shopping mall, our cell phones may allow others to track our every move.
All this data being collected is stored in computers around the world. It's common knowledge that the capacity and speed of computers has been increasing exponentially for decades. But you might be shocked by one of the latest advances.
According to news reports, a research team is developing lasers that will make hard drives 200 times faster! Their speed is measured in femtoseconds (one femtosecond is to a second, what a second is to 31.7 million years). In other words, you ain't seen nothing yet! Or have we?
Proverbs 15:3 says, "The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good." Our behaviour has never been a secret! Keep that in mind when your auto insurer asks you to install the new TomTom device.
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