![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/files\/2017\/10\/googletrend-300x154.png\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you asked people twenty years ago if they believed that we would have refrigerators and salt shakers with internet connections, or always-listening devices like the Amazon Echo that can control these devices, they would have thought you were talking about science fiction. They would also probably be terrified if you told them that everything they do, every website that they visit, every location they visit, is tracked and recorded. They would be affixing their tinfoil hats if they found out that their refrigerator may be sending data about their food preferences to advertisers to create tailored advertisements.<\/p>\n
This is quickly becoming a reality. The \u201cInternet of Things,\u201d the connection of previously unconnected devices to the Internet such that they can communicate with each other and central hubs, is an advertiser\u2019s and data collector\u2019s dream. We already have tailored advertisements that track our searches and cookies to feed us ads that include products we may be interested in based on this data. With the growth of the Internet of Things, the data available to advertisers will continue to increase exponentially.<\/p>\n
An advertiser who wants to target a very specific demographic, for example, males age 18-35 who are lactose intolerant and have an interest in hip hop, could potentially find users matching this description through the treasure trove of data available among the Internet of Things. They could see that an individual had bought lactase pills or almond milk, and also made use of their Spotify data to find their music preferences if they really wanted to market their milk-free, hip hop related product.<\/p>\n
If we reach a point where almost all of the things that we interact with are connected to the Internet, there would be almost nothing stopping data aggregators and advertisers from knowing everything about us. The privacy implications of the Internet of Things are the scariest thing for me. It seems that we are like boiling frogs, unaware of the gradual rise of our privacy being eroded until it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n
At the individual level it seems impossible to stop the trend of privacy invasion. As the Internet of Things progresses, I think it\u2019s up to governments to regulate the ways in which the data generated can be used.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you asked people twenty years ago if they believed that we would have refrigerators and salt shakers with internet connections, or always-listening devices like the Amazon Echo that can control these devices, they would have thought you were talking about science fiction. They would also probably be terrified if you told them that everything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8870,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8870"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/gould\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}