UBT - Mikee wrote:UBT - Timbo wrote:
I've just taken a look at the questions you need to answer in order to just register for yougov.com.....
Reginald Bosanquet Albatross (Mrs)
Dear Mrs. Albatross (It's you again isn't it Mrs. Disgruntled?)
The initial questions are there so that the surveys are sent to the right people. It's no use sending out a questionnaire to a single guy about feminine hygiene products, or asking an elderly person about what they think about the state of British teenage fashions. Companies or institutions usually ask YouGov to send the questions to a specific demographic for that reason.
'Do you watch Newsnight on BBC2?' is quite clever. The chances are that your average 'doledodger' from a council estate doesn't. So that simple question would rule out questions being sent about 'financial products' for instance, but they might still get questions about political voting or their favourite brand of cigarette.
Hi Mike,
What gets me is all this "data-mining" that's going on....and what will happen to all this information....
OK, so we know that for instance:
- All election votes can be traced - so the Govt already know who has voted for it (coz every election ballot paper is numbered and hence can be quantified against your name).
- If you have a loyalty card or credit card, then all your purchases can be logged and thereby checked.
- All your tax, insurance and banking data is logged
- They are talking about introducing more cameras so as to track people.
- Every mobile phone (if switched on) can be tracked and they want to introduce this "system" to cars to allow for road charging.
So, while if you have nothing to hide, there is no problem (in theory) .....but what happens when some of that data gets passed/sold on.....I've just renewed my mobile phone contract and my service provided SOLD my data to 3rd parties without my consent, such that at the end of July, I was plagued by phone calls asking me if I wanted to switch to another phone/another service provider....!
In my experience, a lot of "assumptions" are actually based on half-truths given by people in surveys....because, the survey asks "simplified" questions and then make incorrect assumptions based on that....
e.g. The question about which newspapers you read...what does that say about you? People "assume" that Sun readers are the "lowest common denominator"...but is that really true nowadays....?
And I think this is the problem with any Govt survey - that it is ill-informed and is not based on an overall consensus, but is slanted towards those who fill in surveys....and then the info retrieved is assumed to represent the whole.....
I don't doubt the merits of targetted surveys......but I very much doubt that earning money from providing detailed personal information is actually the right way about doing things.
It'll soon be "earn 20p by telling us about your neighbours dog/teenage son/make of car"...
And then it's a short step towards the BB scenario.....and that truly scares the sh*t out of me....
regards
Arthus P Walrustitty (Maj)
:D
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