“Would you like to accept all cookies?” Nearly every commercial website asks the user this simple yes-or-no question. In 2025, many are aware of what cookies mean and represent, but even just a few years ago this was not the case. Oftentimes, websites asked consumers to essentially sign off on data collection. It was one way society tricked the user into legally allowing them to understand who they are as a consumer. But companies frequently are making efforts to gain more and more data without the consumer’s express permission. Consumer information is becoming a currency, as companies and even third party collectors monetize this data and sell it for profit.
We as consumers often lack an understanding of the full extent of these “user profiles” that companies develop about us. With the allure of casual digital consent, companies can develop comprehensive profiles based on personal, engagement, behavioral, and attitudinal data, which range from one’s social security number to one’s mouse movement (Freedman 1). Computing algorithms can then proceed to analyze these data, which while in some cases is insignificant to the human eye, is very revelatory of what kind of consumer, and even person, one is (Freedman 1). Through this process, companies are able to understand our perspective and reactions to events. On the outside, this is giving companies the ability to best serve their customers, which is the case for many companies. But, also, inadvertently, we are giving away a lot more that allows for a complete invasion of privacy.
There is no doubt that the government has shown their eagerness to protect the consumer through multiple acts, including the Privacy Act (1974), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (1996), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (1998), and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (1998) (Murray 1-2). However, while seemingly showing society progressively taking steps in the right direction, they are less effective than made out to be. For instance, with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, nutrition apps are actually not regulated. And, for the Children’s Online Privacy Act, once the user confirms that they are over 13 years old, they are not protected by the Act (Murray 2). Thus, in order to use a lot of social media sites, the companies require that you are 13, which incentivizes kids to lie about their age, an action that seemingly bears no consequence. Companies have found clever yet underhanded ways to skirt this law.
A telling example of this is from 2013 called the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Cambridge Analytica is a company specializing in political campaigns, targeting specific people most likely to support certain candidates. However, in 2018, the legality of their data acquisition process came into question when a company member came forward to the New York Times and The Guardian, asserting that they accessed data from unconsented users (Harbath and Fernekes 1). It was found out that there was a third party software that, through Facebook, offered an agreement to users — they would be compensated in exchange for taking a personality test and allowing their data to be collected while using the app (Cadwalladr and Graham-Harrison 1). However, the company figured out how to get access to the data of any Facebook friends that the consented users had, people who did not even know or agree that their data was being collected. This data was then sold to Cambridge Analytica, enabling them to identify the party affiliations of voters (Cadwalladr and Graham-Harrison 3). After it was revealed, this led to laws, like the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, and led to companies reforming to be more transparent and less intrusive with data collection, including big names like Twitter, Google, and, of course, Facebook (Harbath and Fernekes 1). While it did lead to reform, the societal costs were high and who knows what would have happened if there was no one who came forward. This proves how companies can sidestep these laws and are incentivized to pursue traffic and profits over societal good.
Fortunately, there is no doubt that society is attempting to make stronger reform, which is especially evident with the one of the strongest data protection laws, the California Privacy Rights Act (2023) (Knowledge at Wharton Staff 1), which requires that companies disclose the consumer information they collect, delete it upon user request, and allow the user to revise their collected data to ensure its accuracy. But the importance of data in the commercial world will continue to incentivize malfeasance, evidenced by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which is why this issue is pervasive in 2025.
As we look ahead, unfortunately there is no end in sight. Even right now, our society is so intertwined with technology that privacy violations are nearly unavoidable for many people. To put it into perspective, 4.88 billion people use smartphones (Gill 1). This large figure demonstrates the extent of the digital world. This trend will only increase with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The idea of AI is that you can train a computer algorithm to think for itself. It is trained by studying data. As AI begins to proliferate each industry, it too will require data about the users. Even right now, one of the largest social media platforms, TikTok, has a proprietary algorithm that has heightened the user experience resulting in its highly curated and wildly popular short form content. The algorithm uses AI with the user’s data to make recommendations for videos, which unfortunately targets the younger-users. Often with the younger generation, there are prevalent social media habits and behaviors that extract a great deal of personal information. For example, Snapchat often takes users’ location; TikTok and Instagram develop and utilize complex algorithms based on media consumption patterns. These apps have become so addictive and ingrained in the culture that they are nearly impossible to avoid, so while users can in theory opt out of data collection, it would require a wholesale shift in the norms of our current digital society. These norms are present in nearly every aspect of one’s daily life, from work, to school, to socialization, to community engagement, to health care, to news consumption, to entertainment.
The prominence of data is a reflection of the growing competition within the corporate world about technology. Data is often collected and mined in order for companies to outcompete other companies. And, there is a benefit to this competitive environment, which is that the companies who hold their data are rewarded for trying to protect it. In fact, it is recommended that each company understands questions, such as who can access your data, where it can be accessed, or what security measures are being taken? (Todt 5) Since data has proven to be an infinitely valuable and sought after commodity, companies strive to protect it.
Also, companies are continuously devising clever ways to force users into signing legally binding contracts to give away their data. The messages that are supposed to be intended as a way to inform the user of permissions they give to websites are often jargon-filled or deceptive, like the cookies example from the introduction. In fact, a Reddit user fairly questioned, “Why do seemingly ALL websites nowadays use cookies (and make it hard to reject them)?” (trafficlight068 1). While this is not the perspective of an expert, it represents the common experience that a person involved with technology, like this Reddit user, faces, which emphasizes the sheer number of websites that now use the digital cookie. And, clearly it often makes it inconvenient and cumbersome to opt out of. It is discrete methods, like this, that demonstrate how sharing data is often not a choice. Additionally, a lot of times, when users make decisions to click yes to cookies or purchase an IPhone, they are simply adapting to a societal norm. So, while sure they are given the choice of being able to consent or block data collection, to fully block data collection has become extremely inconvenient and impractical to not allow.
The Digital Age is allowing software companies to access information without the express consent of the owner. With these large corporations, I am sure that some have the intention of simply providing the best consumer experience. However, there are also some who are mal-intentioned, willing to violate the rights of the consumer to increase profits.
Society has become so reliant on technology and social media in particular, and companies who recognize it are therefore in a position to offer their technology or software at the expense of collecting the user’s data, making it very hard to avoid. So there is an illusion that the user can very easily avoid getting their data collected, but to do that would be very inconvenient, raising the question of whether they really have a choice to avoid data collection or not. As people lose the ability to make their own choices with their own property, the idea of right and wrong does not exist, and is ultimately decided by those with power. Our current inability to control how our information is being spread is an important forecast of what our society may turn out to be in the future. This is leading to an increase in the misuse and displacement of power.
The level to which companies can obtain our data is shocking and should serve as a chilling reminder that we always need to be vigilant about what information we opt to give away. Of course this practice varies with the company and situation but it is always important to remember the potential implications of each ask of permission, even if as innocuous as “Would you like to accept all cookies?”
