The world seems like a beautiful place when you are still young but things start to change as you become more and more practical and get to know the realities. Computer, internet and smartphones are the three technologies that have revolutionized this world like no other thing. However, these three inventions also happen to be the ones most misused. Virus, hacking, spamming etc. are all terms you must be well aware of. Now, there is a new thing that is going to haunt your smartphone and internet experience – data harvesting. Data harvesting is misuse of internet at its worst.
As the name suggests, data harvesting takes place when companies start taking your data from servers of other companies without you ever knowing about this practice. There are several online websites where you provide your personal information for several reasons. For example, you might provide your personal information on a website where you are going to register your website for website hosting. This information is then taken by third parties without your direct consent. It is up to them as to how they use your information. The most common use of the information has been telemarketing calls to people whose information was stolen.
Data harvesting is taking place in many different ways than this. Your personal information is being stolen right from your smartphones. While these companies are to be blamed for this practice, you as a user have responsibilities too. You download applications on your smartphone and almost never see what permissions the application is asking for before installation. What you don’t know is that there are applications that access your smartphone in such depth that they can switch on certain features of your phone from remote distances e.g. they could turn on the camera on your phone.
One important part of this practice is the use of bots on the internet. Information is stolen from websites without their permission through these bots. These bots are scripts that are run on the website to collect information automatically. These bots will then collect and download every single contact available in the website’s record. Not only does it pose dangers to the security of users whose information is being stolen, it also causes the websites harm from where the information is being stolen. Such practice could cause your website’s ranking to go down.
It is your responsibility as a user to know what permissions an application is asking for before you install it on your phone. Latest versions of smartphone operating systems give you great control over the security of your information. Furthermore, if you are signing up on a website for a particular service, it would be highly recommended to read their terms of use. It would be even better if you call them up and confirm that your information will not be passed on to third parties for solicitation. If you don’t get a clean answer from the company, it is time to move on to a new service provider.
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