Information as payment
August 6, 2009 · Chris Peters
You may be unaware that you actually do pay for free services on the web. The form of payment isn't always obvious: your personal information.
You may be unaware that you actually do pay for free services on the Web. The form of payment isn’t always obvious: your personal information.
Consider these examples:
- With Google Analytics, you get a great product in exchange for telling Google about your site’s traffic patterns.
- Entering your information into Facebook allows for their advertisers to better target their ads to your preferences.
- Companies offering free SEO keyword research tools more than likely collect your research terms for use in competitive intelligence for other customers.
I believe that there are are a couple lessons to be learned here. It’s been said already, but I feel that we sometimes need to be reminded:
- Your business can offer free services online in exchange for information. What would be valuable marketing information for you to collect that is often hard to get to?
- We all need to be careful about what we share on others’ websites. How do you feel about Google Toolbar phoning home and collecting information about you?
