Sometimes in this blog we discuss issues of online privacy, data collection and subsequent commercial use by companies that we might not even know we were ever in touch with, and so forth. We know that information concerning "us", our habits and lifestyle has a value. But how much is it worth, actually?
Not much, according to the Financial Times, who published
today a series of figures after consulting a few companies' "menus" and interviewing people in the business. The article is centred on the US market, but it is interesting to get an insight since, with adjustments, the European situation is likely to be comparable.
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| (image from Twitter) |
Examples? "General" information (age, sex, location) is on sale for the bargain price of half a dollar (half a dollar!) for a thousand names; on the other side of the spectrum, getting a list of people suffering from cancer is possible but a bit pricey at 0.26 $ each- unless you buy in massive amounts, which will get you a discount. Specialisation is also important, so certain companies concentrate on e.g. credit records, which can then be sold to lending institutes.
Want to know how much your data is worth? The article is accompanied by an interactive calculator- first question: are you a millionaire?
