Privacy and Chill?

Hannah Chong, TriSight Contributor

Netflix remains one of the only streaming sites without advertisements, relying on the subscription fee model for their revenue. While there remains much evidence that Netflix would lose a significant percentage of their user base, the question still remains as to whether or not Netflix will join Hulu, HBO and YouTube in advertising before, during or in-between videos.

Netflix collects and analyzes lots of data, including when you watch, where you watch, what devices you use to watch, searches, where you pause, fast forward and rewind. They currently use this data to recommend shows to you, figure out what movies to license, and to make improvements to their application and site to best-fit user experience.

As companies collect more and more data to personalize the user experience and target individual users, people start to become more concerned with what that means for their own privacy. Facebook’s recent controversy with its data privacy has alerted many people to what they’ve allowed companies by accepting the terms and conditions without reading them — and it’s much more than they realized.

Although the sheer amount of data that platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Amazon collect on its users could be disastrous in the wrong hands, there is the advantage of the individualization of the user experience. As sites become more individualized, the less users have to slog through advertisements and upgrades that are not relevant to the way they interact with the product. Users can receive coupons and promotions tailored to their interests instead of a general coupon sent to every single user.

The question remains, what kind of data is useful and what kind of data is being unnecessarily collected. Also, there remains the question of whether or not public outrage over the amount of data collection taking place is entirely valid because, after all, the public accepted the terms and conditions — just without reading the fine print.