That money is made with user data in the background is nothing new. However, an evaluation now shows how much that is exactly. Data protection experts have primarily looked at social networks.
We are spending more and more time online, especially on social platforms such as TikTok, Twitter or Meta’s services. Whether as a source of information or for communication – the wide range of offers on these platforms now reaches many users in all age groups.
Social networks collect this data
If you don’t pay for a service, you are the product yourself – this or something similar goes like this is a frequently quoted statement. To a certain extent this is also true, although there are of course differences. Many online services are financed through advertising and the sale of user data. Exactly which one is involved is different and can be found in the terms of use of the providers. Anyone who agrees to this also automatically agrees that certain personal data will be passed on.
This is often about name, date of birth and gender or other comparable data that you enter when registering. In addition, however, there is also data that the networks can access from user behavior. For example, which websites you visit, which subscriptions you have and with which other accounts you interact.
Facebook, for example, uses this data to display personalized advertising – this is an essential part of the business model and in turn makes the platform more interesting for advertisers. This is how the Facebook parent company did Meta in 2021, despite the service being free at the core a turnover of around 118 billion US dollars.
The other social networks such as Twitter and TikTok are not quite as big, but still considerable. Their value is measured by the number of their users – and their data.
That’s what user data is worth
A fundamental distinction must be made between whether the social networks use the data themselves, for example for personalized advertising, or whether they sell it on to third parties. Based on the existing figures, experts from heyData have therefore calculated how much our time on these platforms and thus our data in social networks are worth.
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Up to 2 cents per minute per user
This somewhat simplified calculation experiment nevertheless provides an interesting overview. Broken down, Facebook and Co. earn between 0.002 and 0.019 euros per minute that a user stays on the platform. Calculated over a year (with average screen time), up to 200 euros can be collected.
The Meta group is the leader here; this is also suggested by the general sales figures. YouTube, on the other hand, has the longest average screen time but makes less money in comparison. This should have something to do with the slightly different business model of the platform belonging to Google. Among other things, the service shares the income with the content creators and generally earns more money with advertising clips.
Sources
- We are Social (“Digital 2022 Report”, accessed on 11/02/2022)
- heyData (“How much is your data worth?”, accessed on November 2nd, 2022)
- extra (“Revenue of Meta worldwide from Q1 2010 to Q3 2022”, accessed 11/02/2022)