When you started to go on the Internet or open up the apps section of your smartphone or tablet, were you amazed at how many apps (applications), free offers and other online goodies were free or cost very little?
It’s human nature for us to be lured by low-hanging fruit on a tree that’s practically effortless to pick and makes our baskets fill quickly; likewise when we’re surfing online there’s so much that screams “free” at us.
But is it really free?
Having worked in marketing myself, I am well-aware that if you offer something for free or at a significant discount, you attract attention.
Please don’t misunderstand – this is perfectly legitimate if done properly. But have you gone online and been lured by someone advertising lots of freebies, like free gift cards, or opportunities promising to pay you to take a survey or write a review?
Dig deeper into one of these opportunities and you’ll soon be asked for all sorts of information. Like the snake who persuaded Eve to take and eat the fruit, there are folks who sound convincing when making all kinds of promises. In reality, whatever reward you seek to gain is miniscule compared to the information someone is harvesting about you for the purpose of targeted marketing. Worse still is the possibility that you might be unwittingly loading malware onto your computer or device!
Some who are looking for jobs might be enticed by the low-hanging fruit of a job they are sure to get that seems too good to be true. Drill down a little further and the reality might be that the jobs listed aren’t real but put out as bait, and – again – valuable information about you gets harvested. If you’re still a job-seeker, your resume might be a goldmine for valuable personal data! If you’re in the market for a job, writing a resume with the right keywords is important according to job hunting experts, but giving out too much personal information could come back to bite you.
Social media has become a huge part of our lives, which is especially true of us who are over 50. You might check your Facebook to catch up on old school chums or Likedin for work colleagues. You share photos on Instagram or tweet out your thoughts. Let’s face it, social media is a reality of our technical world that’s not likely to go away.
Remember when you signed up for a Facebook account and were charged nothing, yet you see how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire. This is just one example, but hopefully you’re getting the picture in focus that it’s you who are actually their product. Facebook posted an ad revenue of $69.7 billion in 2019. Advertising represents 98.5 percent of Facebook’s global revenue. The rest includes revenues from consumer hardware devices on VR (virtual reality) devices and other things, as well as net fees Facebook receives from developers using its payments infrastructure.
Nobody’s urging you to leave Facebook or any other social media or application that gathers data from you, but it’s important to understand how these things work and that there are good and bad players in the online game, some as bad as the serpent in Eden’s tree.
When you enter into an agreement (myself included here), how much attention do you pay to that agreement you agree to so you can get an account?
I find that the old saying “when in doubt check it out” is true in this case. We can leverage the power of the Internet to find reviews about online services, promotions, software, etc.
Also, speaking of Adam and Eve reminds me that it’s good to turn off your device and turn to the Bible. You’ll be surprised by how much those holy words say about our lives, online and offline!
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