IF YOU aren鈥檛 paying for the product, you are the product. So runs the mantra of those who criticise huge internet companies like Facebook and Google. They argue that we have entered into a Faustian pact 鈥� trading personal information in exchange for seductively useful services.
How concerned should we be? If the information we reveal isn鈥檛 too sensitive and the marketers who buy it aren鈥檛 too intrusive, we might consider it a fair exchange for the services the social networks offer.
But the realisation that social networking sites can figure out details about us that we haven鈥檛 actually told them (see 鈥淢indreader: Facebook of revelations鈥�) makes the deal鈥檚 merits harder to evaluate: the potential benefits and pitfalls are hard to grasp. Like Faust, we run the risk of not realising the real value of what we have sold 鈥� until it鈥檚 too late.
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