Few things are truly free. Almost everything comes at a cost. Keep this in mind when you sign-up for free services like Gmail, Facebook, and others. Ask yourself, how is it free? Here's how: You are giving away your valuable information in exchange for a service.
Why is your data valuable? Sites like Facebook and Gmail use your demographic data to allow advertisers to target you with products to buy in the form of ad targeting. Some people are ok with their data being used like this and generally trust Facebook and Gmail (so far). In other cases like the email decluttering service Unrollme had been selling user data to Uber to help the company gain insight on when customers were switching between its service and its competitor, Lyft.
According to the Times, Unrollme did so by collecting Lyft receipts from its users’ inboxes and passing that information along to Uber for an undisclosed fee.
All of this is completely legal.
But ask yourself, are you ok with services collecting your receipts from your inbox? Is there other valuable information sitting in your inbox that you wouldn't want others to have access to and sell?
If not, here's my suggestion. Delete all accounts that you don't use often and only use ones you trust and know what they're doing with your data. Read the terms. The fewer people that have your data, the fewer chances you that your data will be mishandled or exposed in a data breach attack.
Stay safe, friends and if you have any other data privacy and security questions, feel free to reach out to us at info@pivotalogic.com ✌️