Tech companies could be raking in more than $1 million a pop from every American’s online data over the years — with AI firms specifically reaping potentially millions more, according to a shocking new study.
Businesses that track individuals’ data stand to net up to $1.08 million per US resident over the course of around 60 years, or from ages 13 to 73, a typical person’s main Web-using years, according to the free-internet group Web3 Foundation.
Worst-case scenario, the tech bigs would garner a still-towering $610,029 from each resident’s online use, the review found.
The top number equates to Americans’ personal data being worth nearly $18,000 per person a year to tech companies.
But that potential figure jumps to a mind-boggling more than $136,000 yearly per resident for artificial-intelligence companies such as Surge AI, the report claimed.
Web3 Foundation studied how 150 leading tech companies — including the likes of tech giants such as Amazon, IBM, Tesla and Oracle Corporation — worked with user data to create engagement and revenue.
The data was taken from clicks, searches, shopping-cart contents and advertisement interaction, with personal information such as location and birth dates also added into the mix.
Even details such as individuals’ device settings and usage patterns are utilized to increase profits, the study found.
Amazon alone stands to make about $1,227 per year from its users’ data, according to Web3 Foundation.
And all of the internet data used to compile those sums is given freely — though often unknowingly — by users as they surf the web or browse applications, with Web3 finding “nine in ten users” ignore website cookie notices and privacy policy consent forms intended to hide data.
“The report stresses that the figures are not presented as precise valuations or direct cash entitlements owed to individuals,” Web3 said.
“Instead, they are intended as a benchmark for understanding the scale of commercial value associated with personal data and the extent to which that value is captured by companies rather than users,” it said.
American internet users were the most valuable in the world for companies, the report found.
User data in Europe and the United Kingdom is worth about $189,405 per individual over the course of a lifetime, the report found, while the rest of the world outside of North America it was worth about $47,404 per individual.