Every website you go to, every app you install and each social media account you open, more than likely has a privacy policy. The fine print as it were, that you must accept if you wish to use most modern services today. They are even baked into Microsoft Windows (I see the disclaimer each time I setup Windows in my computer repair shop), the ISP you used to get here and read this, your credit card issuers, banks, your home, car and student loans. As well as TV’s that can stream movies, Alexa and too many other products to list.
But of course these agreements let you know about the many protections these companies take to insure what they learn about you never gets out to the real world and that all your information is safe and sound with an army of employee’s guarding it with their very life’s, right?
To bad that is not the case in the 21st century. These privacy agreements let most companies sell, share and use your information almost any way they want. All those “free” websites, accounts and apps are paid for with every click you make and each cat video you watch. Ever notice after watching a bunch of videos about a subject, you see ads for something similar for weeks afterward? That’s your “privacy” in action. And it’s all legitimate and legal. All because you really “read” all the pages in your EULA and the Privacy policy, right?
Some of these documents can contain north of 100+ printed pages. So companies know they are safe stuffing almost anything they want into these “fair warning” agreements.
But while all this is bad enough, the really scary part is in many (if not most) cases deep, deep down in this document will be something to the effect of this…
“From time to time we may share some (or all) of your information with our partners, suppliers and on occasion with law enforcement or other legal entities that may have jurisdiction over data we have collected about you.”
And all these different companies and agencies in many cases are free to do whatever they like with your information once they acquire it from the primary company you shared your data with. In other words once one company gets your information in can then be shared or bought by other companies, who can then share or resell it to yet other companies.
So the fact that you might stay up every Friday night watching cat’s in tuxedo videos at 3am while also on review websites for the best pot shops in California could, after being shared over and over with different companies, end up being bought by your car insurance company that now raises your rates out of the blue because you have a higher risk of driving while under the influence.
The gist here is that you should read all agreements before clicking on the “agree” button. It might not be worth installing the next add rabbit ears to all my face shoots app, if your giving up information you never thought anybody can or should see.
As an example, here is a link to paypals “3rd party list”. They only share with 500+ companies. What could go wrong?
https://www.paypal.com/ie/webapps/mpp/ua/third-parties-list