This week our topic is the relationship between privacy and technology. For me, actually I don’t mind if some of my personal information be public. Because I just think I could get more services which cater for my interests. Also, I’m so curious about what will be listed on the search engine if I type my name on google.
My real given name is Qian, family name is Fu. It’s a Chinese name. And because in western country people are used to putting their family name after their given name. So I just type Qian Fu in the Google.
Screenshot 1
Interestingly, The first result in the google not about me, it is a Chinese TV series and just because the spell of it’s name as same as my name’s spell. But actually the meaning of that name of Chinese TV is totally different with my name. “潜伏” is the Chinese character and the “Qian fu” is just like it’s Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, which means “Lurk”. This TV series was pretty famous and I have never considered it have such a relationship with my name. That’s the ambiguity of the technology. When one search engine covered lots of different countries, it can’t match the words just like human who could learn the real meaning of the words.Software only could follow the procedure which made by human.If it meet some ambiguous words just like same spell but different meaning, search engine would give the user some “surprise”.;)
Screenshot 2
However, there are still some foot-print of me in the google. After I came to Australia, I just started to using some other english website such as google more and more. I created my google+ account , Facebook for studying and collaborate, and I leaved lots of my personal information in social media. So I can find my google+ homepage link on the first page when I search myself in google.I don’t think it’s a big deal , and it’s not about privacy disclosure, I know the google+ is a social media so when I created my google+ and post my real name and photo,I agree to open my personal information at the same time.
Screenshot 3
Besides, I also try to use pipl, which recommend by our tutor~ I have never heard about this name before I study this unit. pipls is a famous people search engine, it could be used to find people by using his/her name or location.At first, I just think it’s interesting and try to find myself on it.
Screenshot 4
Screenshot 5
As you can see, I can’t find myself on pipl actually, and it also considered “QianFu” is the name of a boy lol. Then I just change my location to china. I also found on the left of the web page, there are more options to help user find certain people. then I type my email, then try to find more information:
Screenshot 6
Well, now I found myself lol, but it’s just the google+ page…Then I try to type my Chinese name in it, but it not support Chinese…Therefore, I think I could understand why I just could find a little personal information from pipl. It is a kind of search engine based English, and my tech foot-print still not a lot in English webpages.
Screenshot 7
My reflection
After I finished the play of this week,I think of my experience when I do one project recently, we were going to start a project about restaurant and food. we wanted to create an mobile app to help restaurant create their menu and advertise themselves. To do this, we need collect the name of different meals and lots of detail about restaurants. We realised that how data was important for IT project.and also Data will be the most valuable things in the future.
Social media is one of the most powerful platform to gather massive personal information of people around the world.In February, Facebook announced a deal with Acxiom and other data brokers to merge their data, linking real-world activities to those on the Web.(Jessica Leber ,2013) The massive data about personal information,such as name, email, photos, hobbits,even things they liked will have significant meaning for marketing. The same things also happened on WeChat. Because there are almost 7 hundred million users from WeChat, lots of pioneers have found the huge value behind this social media.They utilised WeChat develop their business and expand it by finding more people who are interested in some certain topic.In addition, The company of WeChat also realised the value of data from that social media. Now they will some time push some advertisements on it,but these ads are optional, if you choose that you don’t interested in these kind of ads, then it will not appear next time.What’s more, the ads, in most cases, will be show to the people who are truly interested in it. Because the procedure will analyse every user’s personal information, such as their message history, keywords, their moments. then decide which kind of ads will match their needs.
For me, I am not really care about if my personal information open.Because I could get more things that I liked. I also think the data retention is a meaningful issue for all people. Although there are still some problems need be solved,since not all the people are willing to “open” themselves to the public, and also it will put a user’s security at risk. How to balance these problems and the benefits from data retention will be a big challenge.
Reference:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/514351/has-big-data-made-anonymity-impossible/
Cynthia's world 