"If it is free you are the Product"

This is a topic we briefly discussed in our internet for educators class with one of our guest speakers in late January but it is a topic that keeps coming up.

So what does it mean? You may notice that when you sign up to a lot of things online that they are free.  Things like Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, and twitter are all free but these companies are rich.  That just doesn't add up.  It also doesn't make sense for a company to create a product and let people use it as much as they want for free.  The thing is you are the product and Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and Hotmail are just things to lure you in.  The companies use the information that you in put on to these sites to generate money.  They often sell the information to advertising companies.  The advertisers will use demographic or keyword information from you to give you targeted advertisements that are likely to work on you.  Also Facebook and Instagram have been known to sell your pictures that you post to advertisers to use in their ads.  They can do this because they own the things that you put on THIER site.

I for one don't mind that this is the way things are because I am aware of it.  I know that I am being targeted by advertisers and that photos I put up on the internet are no longer mine.  Being aware of these things allows me to be conscious of what I post online and not to take advertisements to seriously. Using critical thinking is important,

I see the problems with these things from people who are uneducated about how free internet tools generate money.  I feel that high school students are at a particular disadvantage.  They are very vulnerable to advertisers and often don't think about the consequences of their actions (i.e. posting certain pictures).  They also don't think about the big picture and why things online are free.

To combat this we need to have real and honest conversations with our students about these things.  Parents often will have less knowledge then we will have about how the internet works so we can not leave it up to them to educate their children on this.

A great video to activate a conversation about this is this video.  Check it out