First of all what is data mining? Data mining is the process of finding patterns and correlations within large data sets to predict some new information or hidden information . High tech companies uses a broad range of techniques for data mining and uses this information to increase revenues, cut costs, improve customer relationships, reduce risks and increase business efficiency. Various industries have been adopting data mining to their mission critical business processes to gain competitive advantages and help business growth, one of which is Google.
Secondly , what is data monetisation ? Data monetisation is the way of generating measurable economic benefits from available data sources and analytics. Data monetization identifies and market data or data based products(products based on raw, refined or analysed data) to generate revenue .
There are several ways companies use the consumer data and use it for improving customer experience ,refining marketing strategy, turning data into cash flow or using data to secure data. But several big companies like Google are using people private data to their mission critical business processes to gain competitive advantages and help business growth .This is done without the person knowing about it, which raises question on security and personal information (privacy).
According to the researches and investigations :A Financial Times investigation showed that many healthcare websites like WebMD and Healthline has been sharing sensitive user data with big technology companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook , Oracle and others. Google accumulated personal medical records of millions of patients, without notifying them or their doctors. Data mining and monetizing is the core business for platform technology companies. According to McKinsey Global Institute, around 80 per cent of the world’s corporate wealth resides in 10 per cent of companies many of them are in Silicon Valley. The surveillance capitalism is increasingly the business model for every firm, in every industry. Google is keen to enter healthcare and finance because its competitors are already entered there. But Big Tech has an edge in those sectors relative to older players because tech companies are not necessarily subject to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act rules, which set privacy standards for traditional healthcare firms and insurance companies or the penalties that come from breaching them.
Google expanded its data mining to combine users private data across all their google accounts and services, which includes gmail , google maps, internet search history, browsed history, location , photo sharing, without the user knowing about it. They have been mixing user data with advertising means. Big tech companies combines data across multiple accounts and services because the results are extremely valuable. Its like combining small- small bits of information into something highly informative ,just like tiny bits of colored tile can be combined and transformed into a piece of art in the same way tiny bits of unrelated personal users data, when combined and mined at huge scale, can provide immense information and value to advertisers, marketers, corporate sales forces and other people. The revenue generated by combining ,mining and monetizing such data is the reason free cloud services can afford to be free.
Individual privacy, national security, government integrity and safety implications are need to preserved. Instead of using the power of data mining to identify a potential new customer to increase business, it may be misused to identify an undercover intelligence operative. Instead of mining to anticipate a company’s office supply needs, data from across individual and government accounts their email contents, internet searches, history, travel plans were used to anticipate a government policy decision or treaty negotiating position.
We never know the ill motives , there are skilled hackers everywhere, someone can misuse the user data or mingle their data with something else. A users personal data is so important that it might even question his existence .Even the bill statements , the credit card statements , our online transactions list , our account details , our money is at stake . Cloud services have become the heart of people, everyone is using online services doing online transactions ,are creating accounts on various sites, providing credit card details, account no, pins, addresses, all personal details without even thinking once .I am not saying here that companies don’t provide us security and piracy policies , they do . Our data is safe form others, but the thing is they are only playing with our data. Though there motive is to increase their business efficiency and find patterns and useful information for their business growth and users benefits. But if we see one perspective of it not everyone is interested in company’s growth ,some evil minds are out there who can missuses this and put people in danger . Its like Mark Zukerberg , CEO of Facebook ,so he can play with any users profile which should not be the case.
Shristi uniyal 