This is the price of your online privacy and data

We all are pretty sure about how our data is being sold to companies without first acknowledging us. There is a reason why you start seeing ads of the things that are only in your head (Yes, it’s for real!).

A study by the Technology Policy Institute (TPI) quantifies the value of online privacy and data. They assessed six countries including Germany, the United States, Columbia, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina based on their habits to see how much they value privacy.

According to the study, Germans were paid about $8 per month to share their contact information followed by the United States that were only paid $3.40.

It was seen in the study that people value their financial information more than other categorizes. For instance, social media giants would have to pay about $8.44 to consumers so they share their bank balance information. Apart from it, $7.56 to share their fingerprint information; whereas, $5.80 to share information related to cash withdrawals.

Least importance was given to sharing location information that would only cost about $1.82 per month; whereas, nothing for sending advertisement text messages.

Companies and lawmakers are very concerned about the social media giants monetizing and using personal data of users. It is the very reason why Facebook had to face charges and pay fine along with YouTube facing the same fate.

This study was one of its kind considering how important it is to quantify the value of privacy in order to assess proposed privacy policies, mentioned by Scott Wallsten, the President and Senior Fellow at TPI.



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