Is your Facebook data worth pounds, or a few pennies?
Exactly how valuable is the personal data held by Facebook or Linkedin or any number of other websites that collect this date from you when you sign up?
In the current climate of identity theft and hacked accounts who is really honest with this information when asked?
If you’re stopped in the street by a marketer, or phoned by a pollster, do you just give any old answers just to move on, or do you really consider the questions and give honest opinions?
Information on social habits is considered a valuable commodity that can be sold on. Or it was. The idea that self reported social information is accurate cannot be guaranteed. So why would companies pay good money for data they can’t trust to be accurate?
There are exceptions of course where commerce is concerned. You can’t lie about your credit card number or your address if you want the goods delivered. But you can be economical with the truth where your date of birth is concerned. In certain circumstances you could even change your sex.
I have habitually never been totally honest when filling in web forms. My Facebook page is virtually invisible to all but the most trusted of friends and even they don’t get the full picture.
Business links are factual however, but contain no real personal information that could be compromised.
How many other people now adopt similar principles and further devalue the social information database.
Read blindfiveyearold for more on this.