The scariness goes on and on

Mahmudur Rahman writes for DOT : 
Anyone applying for a visa to travel abroad will have filed their NID or Smart Card numbers in the application form. That the embassies have access to our country’s data banks to run checks might not be known to the visa seekers but that’s a fact. Just as is that our personal details, profiles and browsing history is shamelessly in the hands of online advertisers. So much so that a UK based agency has calculated the UK Internet user’s details have been targeted 118 billion times through mix, match,check and targeted advertising.
Any searches on browsers automatically creates profiles resulting in site based advertising that makes one wonders how the advertiser ever came to know of one’s interest in a product or service. But that’s the truth and barring stern ad-blocking software, there’s no way to stop the barrage of advertising. It takes on ridiculous proportions when an online article, when clicked on directs one to an advertising zone. Should one want to delete it, the article in question is deleted with it. Apart from inconvenience it’s all a horrible waste of time. But that’s just what sucker-faced Zuckerberg and company owned up to in front of a US Senate Committee; that privacy details have been sorely compromised.
That’s what we know. What we don’t is how and if these data can be recalled so that access is denied. Nor do we know what steps Facebook and Google are taking to prevent this from happening further. Most important we don’t know if Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission is doing anything to take up the matter with social media sites to protect Bangladeshis. Google Maps require location revelation which means movements can be monitored. Online purchases mean preferences are going public to the gleefully waiting advertiser and browsing history is available to everyone we would rather not have the access.
Leading up to the elections BTRC and the agencies concerned slowed down internet speed, cut access to social media and in some cases barred internet access. That was just for an election. It prevented ‘spread of misinformation’ and ‘campaigning beyond dates allowed’. That tells us something stark. The flow might not be stoppable.
However scary, there are some sites that provide the convenience of screening advertising and even repetitive and auto generated email. Unwanted mail directed to them supposedly never come back. China has effectively come up with the technology of blocking email and social media while providing social media sites of their own. That’s a Prime area where our clever young techies can be put to work. The Zuckerberg’s are not answerable to us so maybe the solution is to have people who are.
Mahmudur Rhman is an Author,columnist,communications specialist