Which Algorithm Are You?

[Commentary] I love online quizzes. And it doesn't matter whether these quizzes are based on data or not. When you tell a site which of a dozen brands is your favorite fast-food chain and which name you'd choose for your baby, you're adding new data, making big data bigger and enabling number crunchers to discover clusters and patterns that no one had seen before.

Technically, it's child's play to match up what you disclose on a quiz with whatever else you've disclosed to other data bases, from Twitter to car loan applications to retailer loyalty cards. Much of this information is commercially available: the terms of service you agree to without reading almost always permit selling your data to data brokers. Not only do you not get paid for this. You also make it possible for companies, government agencies and hackers to figure out who you are, often down to your name and address.

"Behavioral advertising" is the term for targeting consumers based on data they've provided, and I've surprised myself by kind of loving it. I'm also glad that issue campaigns and political candidates can target ads and canvassers based on entertainment preferences, voter rolls and (conceivably, anyway) which puppy picture I think is cutest. If the best way to get the Senate to ratify a climate change treaty is to mobilize the voters most likely to punish their Senators for siding with carbon polluters, I'm glad that the data to do that exists. I think data collection should require consumers to consciously opt-in, data brokers should be regulated, courts should be super-vigilant about surveillance and identity thieves should be forced to watch Capital One credit card ads until the end of time.

[Kaplan is USC Annenberg professor and Norman Lear Center director]

[March 10]