What is the value of your privacy?

Courtesy: TechCrunch

You are less valuable than the data you produce.

The notion of selling your personal data does not sit well with a lot of people but the matter of fact is that you might already being doing it, knowingly or unknowingly. Facebook is free, right? Wondered why? You are selling your data to buy the service.

If a service is free, then you are the product.

The by-product of a company is our data. The mundane customer databases have turned into assets of strategic value and become a route to creation new lucrative services. This has risen to an extent that every company is capitalizing on this opportunity. Giants like Google, Facebook are all data-centric companies. Today, the reach and active user base can boost the valuation of a company even if it is in heavy losses because it is the data that matters. 

But, how do we sell it?

Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19B, that is, roughly, $30 per user (600M users when acquisition took place). The case was very similar when Microsoft acquired Minecraft in 2012. Both these companies have zero profits, and add nothing to the gains of these giants. Then why were they acquired?  

Because people were using them. 

Now this is just one side of the story. Though giving our personal data to anyone and everyone is not perhaps the best idea, but the services that we get has a value close to the worth of the data itself. You can either chose to share an avail these benefits or keep your data to yourself  and be left out of these. 
Nevertheless, it does make Facebook richer each day. The other alternative is pay for a similar service and keep your data private which most of us will not opt for.

The balance between company and consumer is getting imbalanced with the companies having extra control over a lot of data. This will not last long though. It will eventually lead to development of tools giving back control in our hands. If not, there is always the options to keep privacy over cost. You can choose one, if you already haven't.

Will data currency become the future?

Could be. Though your data may not have any significant individual worth but it does make a collective difference which is making companies richer daily. Kaspersky has even set up a "Data Dollar Store" that accepts your personal data as the only currency. It is a concept now but can be the reality in the future.

What do you think about privacy? Is it valuable enough to buy paid services or privacy is long-gone reality?