What advertisers and marketers know about us and how they use our personal information

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Guests: Alice Marwick and Natasha Singer

The activities of the NSA have raised serious concerns about what the government knows about us, but of equal concern is how advertisers, marketers and data-mining firms use our personal information. When we shop online or in stores, buy digital music, and even count our calories on internet sites, we reveal specifics about our interests, our health, our income and our political preferences. Then consider the value of the information we voluntarily put out on social media through our Facebook posts, our Instagram pictures and our tweets. All this “personal data” can be used by any corporation or organization that buys it and in the process our privacy may be seriously violated. In this hour of Radio Times, we’ll talk about the collection and dissemination of our personal data, how it is being used and what can be done to make the activities of data-miners more transparent. Our guests are Fordham University professor ALICE MARWICK and New York Times reporter NATASHA SINGER.

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