“There is no greater gold mine for advertisers than social media,” commented a friend of mine who works in the online analytics business. “People willingly map out their lives, their plans, purchases, where they’ve travelled and pretty much everything. Data is today the most valuable product,” he added.

The info that these online monsters scoop up and then sell to the highest bidder is frightening. Just try and remove your account from Facebook and you’ll see just how much your data means to them, it is almost impossible.

And Facebook isn’t the only vulture. Just look at the case against Tik Tok in the US at the moment. Our lives are open books, and there are plenty of organisations who want to read them.

I am not really a member of the social media party. I use it exclusively from a business standpoint, a means to an end. That I would ever dream of commenting, liking or even opening any social media app, not really. If you discount the odd happy birthday message to close family, then my social media is a black hole. But each to their own.

We are all connected - and someone is making money from this - Photo Canva

Remember a few years ago the big hoo-ha about privacy online. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that was introduced in 2018 with the idea of protecting us all online. It seems that this idea died somewhat in the pandemic.

For it isn’t only social media sites that are getting fat and rich from our data, there are other possibly more sinister companies. One such example landed in my inbox just yesterday.

This isn’t a one off case. Far from it, I am bombarded by such emails. They are sent out by so called “data consultant” companies and are fishing for business. To say that they are an invasion of privacy would be an understatement.

So here is what I received yesterday – “Hello!! Trust this email finds you well. Would you be interested in acquiring “Bar & Restaurant Expo” Attendees/Visitors List – 2023? Date: 27 – 29 Mar 2023. Place: Las Vegas Convention Centre, Las Vegas, USA. Attendee counts: 20,340+ records with emails. Interested? I will send out more details, cost and samples of the list. Kind Regards, Casey Cruz - Data Consultant.”

Yes, it is basically a company trying to sell me all the details, including emails address, of all the attendees of this congress.

As I said this is far from being the first time I have got such an email. And as much as I try to contact them to find out how this is legal they just won’t reply to me.

So when you go to any event you are normally asked to fill out a short form with your name, address, email, contact, etc. And these forms are clearly being sold.

Why would someone buy them, you might ask? Data is king. If you had a list of emails from this event, then you’ve already got a great start for an email campaign to sell something. And these lists aren't cheap. One congress organiser offered me a list of an event in New York, a popular travel congress, for $1,500.

You might think that this list comes from the US where the GDPR rules don’t exist. Whilst it is true that GDPR was introduced in the area of the European Union I still get emails selling such lists from conferences and meetings in Spain, Italy, Germany, well basically all of Europe.

So even if you have tried your hardest to avoid the obvious pitfalls of social media you’ll probably find your details being sold to the highest bidder online. And once you have this info the jump to spam, scam and hacking isn’t that far away. People are always the weakest link.

There is even advice online on how to sell your attendee list to make money. Reams of websites that go through, step by step, on how to optimise your congress and event profits. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, the cost of cybercrime is predicted to hit $8 trillion in 2023. And a great many of us will contribute to this total.

Living as a ghost is pretty impossible. Somehow or another you are going to have an online presence. It’s how we all manage that presence that is the key. What might seem like a harmless post on social media is food for advertisers. Stop feeding them. 

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