A Better User Experience -- The Reason The Internet Is Spying On You

Open a newspaper, turn on the news, open nearly any social media application or listen to radio or podcasts...it's nearly impossible to avoid someone, somewhere touting the sinister collection and usage of user data.  The latest boogieman of modern society, the worlds master of ceremony drags this villain on stage to be pelted with tomatoes by an enthusiastic crowd of participants.  Politicians, seeing an opportunity capitalize on outrage, often overlooking the hypocrisy of mandating the participation of surveys officiated by the Census Bureau.

User privacy is an incredibly complicated topic, far too complicated to even touch on.  Rather, I'd submit to the 2+ possible readers of this post who stumbled upon this during a particularly boring company meeting, insomnia-fueled browsing, or particularly long bowel movement, that privacy is an individual choice and should be an informed decision.  Focused on those who may not consider themselves tech-savvy, the remainder of the post will attempt to focus on 'why your phone/computer knows so much about you', the likely motivations from a technical perspective.

Money

Despite the popular 'evil corporation trope' I personally don't feel there is a legion of business leaders tenting their fingers around Hitler's well-preserved French-inspired boardroom conference table and plotting how they can pillage the remaining ounces of user data from the peons.  Instead, you have companies ranging from start-ups to billion-dollar organizations trying to figure out how to fund their operations.  For example; Google's Alphabet reported $39.3 billion in 2018 revenue, $9.19 billion in net revenue which leave ~$30 billion in annual operating expenses.  Droves of engineers, scientists, marketing personnel and others require salaries.  Multi-million dollar server farms require equipment.  Monthly utility costs alone are likely beyond the capacity of understanding for folks like you and me.  Big Daddy's gotta eat and companies like this found a way to create revenue from something seemingly worthless at the time.  With approximately 2 billion active devices, do a little simple math; that's $15 / device to cover Google's annual expenses.  Now, count the number of devices (phones, tablets, computers,...) you have in your family and tally it up.  Would you consider cutting an annual check to Google for that amount?  Yes....cool, calculate the same for all the other providers you use; Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook....inventory your phone.....I'll wait.
User data is obviously big business, perform some mental gymnastics and consider alternatives to funding such technical powerhouses.  Personally, Google alone provides me more benefits that local and federal government on a daily basis but I wouldn't tolerate an equivalently sized tax expense to retain such tech and out-of-pocket expenses would likely be comparable.  Alternatively, we could return to the days of physical maps, encyclopedias, pre-web and newspapers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My apologies, I got a bit long-winded and certainly preachy.  Please focus on my intended point; these revolutionary technologies cost money to build and maintain, people have demonstrated a reluctance to pay market value and user data has stepped in to fill that void.  If user data currency were to leave, the tech would follow or the monthly expenses would somehow make their way to the consumer, anyone who says otherwise is living in an alternative reality.

Language

Let's start light, your computer and Internet applications know your preferred language?  The reason is likely apparent, but pretend for a moment it didn't.  With 1.2 Billion population in China compared to a mere 300 million in the US, how useful would it be if the majority of your web content was provided in Mandarin?  I've personally witnessed folks throwing a hissy-fit when an ATM requests preferred language on the primary screen.  Selecting a language is an additional stumbling block in accomplishing your goal, getting relevant information.  When web applications know your preferred language and the language of the content it can even offer to automatically translate the content to your preferred language, auto-magically.

Location

But why does the Internet need to know my current location?  For those of you that didn't live through the era of the floppy disk you may not have lived through the birth of the Internet.  In the pre-Cambrian era of technology, the Internet was primitive and small.  You could navigate it in the same way you conducted a search in your local library....dig through a card catalog and find information local to your community library.  As this virtual library (our Internet metaphor) scaled to a massive level a better way to peruse it became not only desired....but essential.  Location could easily be viewed as a primary descriptor of finding relevant content for users.  When searching for the Department of Commerce information you're likely interested in the one related to the state in which you currently reside.  Searching for 'hospital' likely wouldn't satisfy your true goals if it returned results on the other end of the country.  If you're inquiring about the 'business hours of Applebees', you're likely interested in whether you have time to grab a late-night cocktail, not the hours from another state and time-zone.  During the pre-Cambrian Era of tech you had to constrain ALL your searches with location when it was relevant.
But just for fun, try doing without; if you have access to a VPN, select a site on the other side of the country (or world) so it's best guess to your location is not representative of where you really are.  Next, open an incognito window to avoid location awareness.  Do that for a day, quantifying all searches with your current city/state and measure your frustration.  Without location you're Internet life/searches becomes much, much less user friendly; functional, but far less convenient.
Exploring local dining and event options without your current location pushes a good deal of complexity onto the user.  Suppose you're visiting a new city, rife with suburbs and are looking for a quiet coffee house.  Perhaps you're a well-equipped traveler with knowledge of the surrounding suburbs and prepared for conducting a series of searches for coffee shops in each so you can select the best suit to your particular taste.
I'm intentionally going to leave out vehicle and walking navigation as I feel that is a pretty apparent need for location and I haven't met anyone who would be enthusiastic to returning to the days of paper maps.

Search/Watch/Navigation History

I'll sprint to the table for a conversation about how much I hate unsolicited advertising.  Today's USPS mail-box equivalent, bursting with personalized 'offers' and ads while still prominent has been augmented with shotgun-style advertising via e-mail and other web presences.  Big Daddy's still got to eat, and I'm significantly more tolerant to advertisements for products I may actually use.  Call it targeted advertising, tattoo it with maliciousness, but honestly....would you rather have advertised products that align with your interests or one's of day's past....2-for-1 diaper deals (infant or adult) when you're childless, window installer fliers to renters,... I'll gladly exchange irrelevant ads for one's that are applicable to things I want or need.  Still hate ads, but hate targeted ones less.

Intelligence baked into navigation history provides benefits, how else would you know from the bazillions of Internet cat videos which one(s) you'd like to watch?  Watch 'Corner Gas', let me recommend 'Letterkenny'; exposing you to series that you otherwise may never have seen.  Just bought a Toro 24" mower, what if next season you're prompted with the filter/plug replacement parts rather than have to remember and look up the parts?  Suggestions provided by 'the algorithm' sounds ominous, but just try to recall what it was like before Barnes and Nobles suggested authors you may like based on your previous readings, what it was like that every news outlet published a generalized bundle of the masses.  Advertising and knowledge distribution today views you more as an individual than ever before, recognize the blessings of this.

Device Info

Capturing device information and usage provides the holy grail of support and market-based business decisions.  Consider the US Census again; why does it exist?  Is it a plot to expose all our individual secrets?  Or is it an essential metric to understand where the nation can/should invest?  Businesses armed with a key understanding of how users are using their products, what they use, what they don't is an essential part of determining where to continue investing.  Prior to user-based metrics business leaders took the word of third-party personnel (sales folk, politicians, and product domain mentalists) or sub-sampling users with surveys and extrapolating the results to make business decisions.  Or, worse, they simply just guessed.  Every button you click, every scroll pane you see, every screen and graphic costs money to build and maintain.  Every release, countless features are exhaustively tested by an army of testers.  Identifying obsolete features is essential in discontinuing unneeded/unwanted features, without which you indiscriminately spend on unneeded products (e.g. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/fda-used-have-people-whose-job-was-taste-tea-180967545/)

Today, leaders are armed with data to make data-driven decisions; exponential growth...better invest in personnel and equipment 'cause the flood of users is coming, exponential shrinkage means the feature/product may be on a dying path.

Birthdate

With exception to a mere handful of family members, I generally don't remember birthdays and consider it a blessing that my phone reminds me when my amazing neices/nephews have a birthday due.  Despite the cesspool that the Internet can be, it has the ability of bringing us together.  Recognizing and celebrating a single day to show someone how you feel is a worthwhile step in the right direction.  The interests of a 20-something and a 60-something dramatically differ, that knowledge allows providing relevant info to you.

Contacts

Verbal commands have introduced a new element in how we interact with systems.  Pop-quiz; what's the telephone number of your sister/brother/buddy?  Chances are, you're more likely to remember the capital of North Dakota over that phone number.  Without associating a name and phone number, the purpose of your contacts, you'd be left with 'Ok Google, call 952-555-1212' or doing without verbal command conveniences.  Ditto for e-mail, sms and such.  Third-party applications request access to your contacts to allow sharing via SMS, e-mail and such.

Closing

User privacy is certainly complex subject and like your social security and bank accounts you should protect them accordingly.  A good deal of attention has been paid on why/how to protect user privacy but seldom speak to why the information is being gathered and/or used.  Fear sells, so a good chunk of media attention is on the potential malicious use of the information.  Having spent going on 3 decades in the software engineering industry I can speak with some confidence that there exists no droves of shady software engineers hiding in the shadows writing applications with the sole intention of stealing your semi-sensitive information with sole purpose of mischief.  Instead, many conveniences and good user experiences are build upon this information, making things more convenient and usable.  The primary goal of the Internet is (or should be) to get relevant information as easily and quickly as possible.  Searching for the closing hours for that boutique French bakery down the street which name has currently escaped you shouldn't require "french bakery english language st paul mn united states", instead 'french bakery' simply returns Trung Nam French Bakery in the key return list.  Less typing, more croissants.

Finally, I'm not advocating simply hammering on the 'accept' button and freely give away user privacy to any Tom, Dick and Harry.  I value my data privacy as much as probably most, but not understanding why or how it's being used is part of an informed decision.

Now, go find something cool.