We have lost our privacy and there isn't much we can do about it

A research paper from Trinity College Dublin sheds some light on the fact that the phone dialer and messaging applications used by the company were collecting data. This is a very boring way to tell you the same thing you've read about about how the internet giant was harvesting information about you and your friends. It is a good way to discuss the bigger problem of user privacy in the digital age.

What they did was wrong. Let's be clear about that. The ability to opt-out was given to you by the fact that you were told about it in advance.

Many of the early articles about the situation were edited and inflammatory language was removed because of what was explained by Google. I would like to call out the way in which the police handled this. Well done, AP. Unfortunately, publications like this one are forced to report when news happens and would be financially punished for waiting for all the details.

I don't like what they did here but I am not surprised by it. When we were told that the dialer and messages app would be collecting more data, we knew it was coming. There were posts on the internet. That does not make it right.

RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU...

The original author of the paper did not write it, so we would have sensational headlines to read. There were things that could have been done better, and that information was made available to the public. Some of the advice has been taken by the search engine.

The whole opt-out thing is my biggest gripe. We can opt out of data collection through the dialer or any app by reading through all the policies and not agreeing when we first sign into our phone. If you want to get a flip phone, you should probably put it back in the box and get a full refund. Every tech company requires you to give personal information to receive services, whether they are free or not.

Your data is priceless and it fuels the modern digital economy. If you live off the grid and wear a tinfoil hat, it is priceless. A company can become worth trillions of dollars with user data.

Companies get richer off of your data

It is time for all of us to understand this. The giant it is is not because of the phones it sells. Apple didn't know which features to build into the next version of its products. Amazon didn't become the biggest online retailer by offering the best products at the best price. They all became too big to fail by using our data.

Billions and billions of Gigabytes of data are created every day. The web page that tells us what's on sale at Target is harmless. Some of it is harmless, like when you tell your phone company where you were every minute of every day last week, or when you tell your cell service provider where you are. Sometimes we give away our data without even knowing, and other times we begrudgingly give it away. The problem is that we have to do it.

I can not tell you what you should not share with others. That decision will be different for everyone. I don't like why we give it away. Do you want to use the best phone? You have to agree to give away data that you don't want to give away, with the company that made your phone, companies that built apps that are included as extra features, and even third parties that are needed to accumulate and categorize the mountain of data that is collected about us.

It is rare to see a tech company do the right thing and not keep track of us unless it absolutely has to, because they are forced to do the bare minimum when complying with data protection and privacy laws. There is too much money in it.

Can things change?

I am not saying that we have reached the future we see in movies and TV shows. We were fooled into thinking that we were in control of how our data is collected and used when the truth is that we have no real choices and are forced to comply or not take part in the digital renaissance. I hope things will get better, but I don't think they can.