Someone tried.
Janet Vertesi, assistant professor of sociology at Princeton University, had an idea: would it be possible to hide her pregnancy from big data? Thinking about technology—the way we use it and the way it uses us—is her professional life’s work. Pregnant women, she knew, are a marketing gold mine; a pregnant woman’s marketing data is worth 15 times as much as the average person’s. Could Vertesi, a self-declared “conscientious objector” of Google ever since 2012, when they announced to users that they’d be able to read every email and chat, navigate all the human and consumer interactions having a baby would require and keep big data from ever finding out?
Meet The Woman Who Did Everything In Her Power To Hide Her Pregnancy From Big Data
Big surprise: it’s extremely hard. Furthermore, that sort of behaviour gets you flagged as someone behaving really, really suspiciously. Less like someone privacy-counscious, more like a terrorist. (more)
