Data: companies want it, users have it, and it’s valuable because it can be used to sell people things. Beyond that, it’s not often made clear exactly what user data consists of, where it goes, and how it’s profitable. Why does this multi-billion dollar industry full of data brokers, advertisers, and technology companies exist? What’s in the data? “User data” is pretty much everything that a particular company knows about you. It’s often broken down into three main categories: explicit/declared data, implicit/inferred data, and third-party data. Explicit data is anything that a user gives a company voluntarily. Generally, this is done when a customer signs up for a service or creates some kind of profile, and it can include everything from your name (though it’s often anonymized), age, and location to your hobbies and personality type. These details are just basic user data, and since they’re so widespread and easy to obtain, the most common data points aren’t worth ...
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