Opacity and Exploitation: A Broken Consent Model

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Most users believe they’ve given limited permission when they download an app or accept cookies. In reality, they’ve enabled a cascading series of permissions and data transfers. Even anonymized data can be deanonymized using cross-referenced datasets, and terms like “opt-out” are often hard to execute in practice.

Problems with Consent:
Vague Language: Privacy policies are written to confuse.

Forced Permissions: Deny access, and the app won’t function.

Bundled Consent: One agreement covers multiple uses.

Lack of Awareness: Users don’t know how deeply their data travels.

The value you generate through your phone is captured almost entirely by third parties.

7. Global Trade in Data: A Billion-Dollar Industry
Phone data has created a shadow economy that rivals many vietnam phone number list physical industries. Some estimates peg the global data broker market at over $250 billion annually.

Notable Transactions:
Telcos selling data to hedge funds for retail footfall predictions.

Apps sharing health data with insurance companies.

Location data sold to ICE or law enforcement agencies.

Each dataset, once combined with others, increases in value. The supply chain doesn’t just process data—it compounds it.