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You wake up in the morning and, first thing, you open your weather app. You close that pesky ad that opens first and check the forecast. You like your weather app, which shows hourly weather forecasts for your location. And the app is free! But do you know why its free? Look at the apps privacy settings. You help keep it free by allowing it to collect your information, including: What devices you use and their IP and media access control addresses. Information you provide when signing up, such as your name, email address, and home address. App settings, such as whether you choose Celsius or Fahrenheit. Your interactions with the app, including what content you view and what ads you click. Inferences based on your interactions with the app. Your location at a given time, including, depending on your settings, continuous tracking. What websites or apps that you interact with after you use the weather app. Information you give to ad vendors. Information gleaned by analytics vendors that analyze and optimize the app. This type of data collection is standard fare. The app company can use this to customize ads and content. The more customized and personalized an ad is, the more money it generates for the app owner. The owner might also sell your data to other companies. You might also check a social media account like Instagram. The subtle price that you pay is, again, your data. Many free mobile apps gather information about you as you interact with them. As an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and a doctoral student in computer science, we follow the ways software collects information about people. Your data allows companies to learn about your habits and exploit them. Its no secret that social media and mobile applications collect information about you. Metas business model depends on it. The company, which operates Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is worth $1.48 trillion. Just under 98% of its profits come from advertising, which leverages user data from more than 7 billion monthly users. What your data is worth Before mobile phones gained apps and social media became ubiquitous, companies conducted large-scale demographic surveys to assess how well a product performed and to get information about the best places to sell it. They used the information to create coarsely targeted ads that they placed on billboards, print ads, and TV spots. Mobile apps and social media platforms now let companies gather much more fine-grained information about people at a lower cost. Through apps and social media, people willingly trade personal information for convenience. In 2007a year after the introduction of targeted adsFacebook made over $153 million, triple the previous years revenue. In the past 17 years, that number has increased by more than 1,000 times. Five ways to leave your data App and social media companies collect your data in many ways. Meta is a representative case. The companys privacy policy highlights five ways it gathers your data: First, it collects the profile information you fill in. Second, it collects the actions you take on its social media platforms. Third, it collects the people you follow and friend. Fourth, it keeps track of each phone, tablet, and computer you use to access its platforms. And fifth, it collects information about how you interact with apps that corporate partners connect to its platforms. Many apps and social media platforms follow similar privacy practices. Your data and activity When you create an account on an app or social media platform, you provide the company that owns it with information like your age, birth date, identified sex, location, and workplace. In the early years of Facebook, selling profile information to advertisers was that companys main source of revenue. This information is valuable because it allows advertisers to target specific demographics like age, identified gender, and location. And once you start using an app or social media platform, the company behind it can collect data about how you use the app or social media. Social media keeps you engaged as you interact with other peoples posts by liking, commenting or sharing them. Meanwhile, the social media company gains information about what content you view and how you communicate with other people. Advertisers can find out how much time you spent reading a Facebook post or that you spent a few more seconds on a particular TikTok video. This activity information tells advertisers about your interests. Modern algorithms can quickly pick up subtleties and automatically change the content to engage you in a sponsored post, a targeted advertisement or general content. Your devices and applications Companies can also note what devices, including mobile phones, tablets, and computers, you use to access their apps and social media platforms. This shows advertisers your brand loyalty, how old your devices are, and how much theyre worth. Because mobile devices travel with you, they have access to information about where youre going, what youre doing, and who youre near. In a lawsuit against Kochava Inc., the Federal Trade Commission called out the company for selling customer geolocation data in August 2022, shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Kochavas customers, including people who had abortions after the ruling was overturned, often didnt know that data tracking their movements was being collected, according to the commission. The FTC alleged that the data could be used to identify households. Kochava has denied the FTCs allegations. Information that apps can gain from your mobile devices includes anything you have given an app permission to have, such as your location, who you have in you contact list, or photos in your gallery. If you give an app permission to see where you are while the app is running, for instance, the platform can access your location anytime the app is running. Providing access to contacts may provide an app with the phone numbers, names, and emails of all the people you know. Cross-application data collection Companies can also gain information about what you do across different apps by acquiring information collected by other apps and platforms. This is common with social media companies. This allows companies to, for example, show you ads based on what you like or recently looked at on other apps. If youve searched for something on Amazon and then noticed an ad for it on Instagram, its probably because Amazon shared that information with Instagram. This combined data collection has made targeted advertising so accurate that people have reported that they feel like their devices are listening to them. Companies, including Google, Meta, X, TikTok, and Snapchat, can build detailed user profiles based on collected information from all the apps and social media platforms you use. They use the profiles to show you ads and posts that match your interests to keep you engaged. They also sell the profile information to advertisers. Meanwhile, researchers have found that Meta and Yandex, a Russian search engine, have overcome controls in mobile operating system software that ordinarily keep peoples web-browsing data anonymous. Each company puts code on its web pages that used local IPs to pass a persons browsing history, which is supposed to remain private, to mobile apps installed on that persons phone, de-anonymizing the data. Yandex has been conducting this tracking since 2017, while Meta began in September 2024, according to the researchers. What you can do about it If you use apps that collect your data in some way, including those that give you directions, track your workouts, or help you contact someone, or if you use social media platforms, your privacy is at risk. Aside from entirely abandoning modern technology, there are several steps you can take to limit access, at least in part, to your private information. Read the privacy policy of each app or social media platform you use. Although privacy policy documents can be long, tedious, and sometimes hard to read, they explain how social media platforms collect, process, store, and share your data. Check a policy by making sure it can answer three questions: what data does the app collect, how does it collect the data, and what is the data used for. If you cant answer all three questions by reading the policy, or if any of the answers dont sit well with you, consider skipping the app until theres a change in its data practices. Remove unnecessary permissions from mobile apps to limit the amount of information that applications can gather from you. Be aware of the privacy settings that might be offered by the apps or social media platforms you use, including any setting that allows your personal data to affect your experience or shares information about you with other users or applications. These privacy settings can give you some control. We recommend that you disable off-app activity and personalization settings. Off-app activity allows an app to record which other apps are installed on your phone and what you do on them. Personalization settings allow an app to use your data to tailor what it shows you, including advertisements. Review and update these settings regularly because permissions sometimes change when apps or your phone update. App updates may also add new features that can collect your data. Phone updates may also give apps new ways to collect your data or add new ways to preserve your privacy. Use private browser windows or reputable virtual private networks software, commonly referred to as VPNs, when using apps that connect to the internet and social media platforms. Private browsers dont store any account information, which limits the information that can be collected. VPNs change the IP address of your machine so that apps and platforms cant discover your location. Finally, ask yourself whether you really need every app thats on your phone. And when using social media, consider how much information you want to reveal about yourself in liking and commenting on posts, sharing updates about your life, revealing locations you visited, and following celebrities you like. This article is part of a series on data privacy that explores who collects your data, what and how they collect, who sells and buys your data, what they all do with it, and what you can do about it. Kassem Fawaz is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jack West is a PhD student in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
“Plan for traffic jams, get traffic jams. Plan for human flourishing, get human flourishing.” Thats not just some cheesy urbanism mantra, its behavioral science. Human behavior is often just following the path of least resistance. Not necessarily because we’re lazy, but because our brains are wired to conserve effort. Psychologists will tell you that the more friction we encounter (physical, mental, or procedural) the less likely we are to continue the thing were doing. The fox and the grapes Aesops fable The Fox and the Grapes is a parable about decision-making. The fox cant reach the grapes that are way up high on the vine, so he figures they must not be ripe. Its where we get the phrase sour grapes to describe how someone rationalizes their poor reasoning. I came across a research study that applied Aesops fable. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}} Fifty-two participants judged the direction of moving dots on a screen by using handles in either hand. When researchers subtly increased resistance in one handle, participants unconsciously altered their judgments to favor the easier action. For example, adding resistance to the left handle made participants more likely to perceive the dots moving to the right, since moving the right handle was easier. “Our brain tricks us into believing the low-hanging fruit really is the ripest, neuroscience researcher Dr. Nobuhiro Hagura said. We found that not only does the cost to act influence people’s behavior, but it even changes what we think we see.” Dr. Haguras team found that bias occurred without participants realizing that one response required more effort. In other words, their brains recalibrated what felt right based on ease, not accuracy. Unconscious decisions People dont read zoning ordinances. They dont memorize bus schedules. They dont have a photographic memory of where to find bike lanes. They dont make pro/con lists before deciding whether to walk to the store or drive. Most daily decisions are unconscious. So if local government leaders want people to choose healthy, sustainable, socially beneficial behaviors, those behaviors have got to be the easiest ones to choose. Unfortunately, most American towns and cities are built the opposite way. Walking your child to school often means dodging traffic, climbing over curbs, and waiting at unshaded intersections with no bench in sight. Riding a bike might mean taking a lane next to speeding trucks. Taking transit might mean waiting in the mud with no sidewalk or shelter. But hopping in a car? Thats easy. Weve paved a deadly path of least resistance. Whats doable, but requires some up-front energy by the expert planners and engineers, is to make safe and healthy choices as simple and intuitive by creating a system that nudges you in the right direction. Organizing principles Entrepreneurs often cite their one-line hook for a product or service as the key to staying focused. Urban planners, policy writers, and elected officials should steal this tactic. Every transportation plan, housing study, parking reform, or downtown revitalization effort could begin with a one-sentence purpose thats clear, memorable, and anchored in human flourishing. That sentence becomes your compass when debate veers off course. For example: Our streets will be safe for 8-year-olds riding bicycles. We will eliminate policies that interfere with abundant housing. Cars are welcome on our streets, but they will move slowly. Townhouses should be legal in every neighborhood. Our residents should not be forced to drive to get around. Housing people is more important than housing cars. The bus should not be stuck in traffic. These types of one-liners can be organizing principles, which is more powerful than empty slogans. If the plan, ordinance, or capital project doesnt help achieve the one-sentence purpose, its off-mission. If it conflicts, it should be stopped. People choose whats easy, so make good urbanism easy. Make it the path of least resistance. {"blockType":"creator-network-promo","data":{"mediaUrl":"","headline":"Urbanism Speakeasy","description":"Join Andy Boenau as he explores ideas that the infrastructure status quo would rather keep quiet. To learn more, visit urbanismspeakeasy.com.","substackDomain":"https:\/\/www.urbanismspeakeasy.com\/","colorTheme":"green","redirectUrl":""}}
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E-Commerce
Many real estate investors dont set out to build rental businesses. Rather, they stumble into them. Think of the Gen Xer who just inherited their parents home, the professional whos moving out of state for a new job but is reluctant to sell their current home, or the empty nester who bought a townhome for their college student to live in and is renting extra rooms out to other students. We see many of these accidental investors applying gig economy principles to manage their properties with the precision, efficiency, and professionalism of full-time operators, without traditional overhead. Instead of relying on manual processes, accidental operators are embracing a tech-forward, efficiency-driven approach that mirrors how gig workers treat rideshare, delivery, or freelance work: Generate income with maximum efficiency and minimal friction, while building flexible systems that scale. Embrace the gig economy blueprint The gig economy didnt just disrupt industriesit rewired expectations. Rideshare drivers, delivery couriers, and freelancers embraced flexible, app-enabled platforms that allowed them to monetize time, skills, and assets without needing to build infrastructure themselves. These platforms emphasized speed and user experience, qualities that became the gold standard across industries. Whether someone was delivering food, designing a logo, or driving someone to the airport, the mindset was the same: Use tech to accomplish more with less effort. That same logic is now being applied to real estate investing. A gig economy approach to rental operations Gig economy thinking favors systems over sweat. Instead of building massive operations, part-time rental investors prefer to think like gig workers, plugging into tools that do the heavy lifting. That means ditching time-consuming manual processes for technologies that simplify and streamline virtually all aspects of managing properties. Heres how they do that. Automation as infrastructure: Mirroring the way gig platforms consolidate multiple functions into one easy-to-use app, investors are turning to mobile-first platforms to handle everything. What used to take hours of work to manage property listings, tenant screening, lease signing, rent collection, maintenance coordination, and communication now takes just a few taps on a phone. Automation not only saves time but also ensures consistency. Rent reminders are sent automatically. Late fees are triggered when appropriate. Maintenance workflows keep tenants, vendors, and owners updated in real time. These tools create a seamless operating backbone that allows even part-time investors to run their portfolios like a professional business without needing a large back office, much like a rideshare driver operating solo but supported by enterprise-grade technology. Customer experience mindset: Similar to how gig platforms prioritize customer convenience, tenants benefit from more attention with less effort on the investors part, thanks to tech that provides 24/7 access to services from convenient digital rent payment options to submitting and tracking maintenance requests any time of the day or night. Additional perks like credit-boosting features that report on-time rent payments help improve tenants financial standing enhance satisfaction and retention, a dynamic common across gig platforms. Data-driven decision making: Inparallel to how gig workers use ratings, earnings dashboards, and performance data to refine their approach, real estate investors now have access to real-time insights that help them optimize key aspects of their portfolio without relying on spreadsheets or guesswork. Analytics such as rent collection trends, on-time payment rates, maintenance performance, expense breakdowns, and occupancy patterns provide a clear picture of whats working and where improvements can be made. These tools allow investors to fine-tune pricing strategies, manage turnover, forecast cash flow, and control repair costs with greater confidence and precision. In short, real estate investors are managing systems with the same mindset that defines successful gig economy operators. Turn passive income into a streamlined operation Real estate investing has always promised passive incomebut in practice, the day-to-day demands of managing properties often told a different story. Now, thanks to automation and centralized platforms, todays investors are much closer to realizing the true potential of passive income. They can reduce the time, effort, and stress traditionally involved in managing rentals. Automated rent collection eliminates the need for paper checks and late-night accounting. Features like automatic reminders, late fees, and autopay help ensure payments come in on time without the investor needing to chase tenants or manually track balances. Maintenance coordination is now a seamless process. Tenants can submit requests through the app at any hour. Vendors can respond directly. Everything from work orders to invoices is logged automatically. This prevents after-hours disruptions and keeps all parties informed in real time. Pre-screening and leasing tools further reduce the time investment. Investors can quickly identify high-quality tenants using built-in scoring systems that evaluate applicants on key risk factors, offering an instant snapshot of whether a candidate is a strong fit, a conditional accept, or potentially high risk. This helps fill vacancies faster and with greater confidence, lowering turnover and vacancy rates. Gig economy thinking is about doing less, better. By setting up efficient systems, todays real estate investors are building flexible, resilient rental businesses that demand far less hands-on time than in the past. Technology not only reduces workit empowers investors with greater control and visibility, without adding friction to the process. A growing segment with institutional-level ambition Many accidental operators start small, but todays tech makes it easier than ever to scale. With digital platforms and streamlined systems, these investors are closing the gap between independent and institutional playersnot in size, but in sophistication. The same tools that help part-time investors operate like seasoned professionals are raising industry standards. In many cases, they now deliver faster service, stronger communication, and greater transparency than traditional operators. Just as Uber and Airbnb empowered individuals to transform entire industries, tech-enabled investors are reshaping the future of real estate, one property at a time. Ryan Barone is cofounder and CEO of RentRedi.
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E-Commerce
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