Have you ever wondered that the data (the content) you put in on the world’s largest search engine giant is of worth how much? A new research finds people puts up over $5,000 worth of personal information a year to Google in lieu of its “free services” – the search engine giant offers.
Michael Fertik, CEO and founder of Reputation.com, says personal information can be worth between $50 and $5,000 per person per year to advertisers and market researchers, depending on how much they spend and how useful the information is to third parties.
Others say the data may be worth billions of dollars to social networking sites and online marketing agencies. “Their entire market cap is related to how much data is being collected and used,” says Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank.
The European Union proposed “data protection law” comes into existence, than firms have to face being fined up to 2% of their global annual turnover if they found breaching the proposed EU data laws. The EU has put forward the suggestion as part of a new directive and regulations.
Google, within a month’s period, is gearing up to change its current privacy policy – merging its all 60 different product policies into one, resulting into a one single big product. Once you opt-in you can’t stop using all Google products. These changes will take effect on March 1, the company stated in its blog post.
So next time do think whenever you shared your personal information on Google, do remember how much the search engine is making on every note you added.
