Google generated approximately $264.6 billion from advertising in 2024. Every search, click and scroll helped generate that revenue, yet the people behind that data rarely see a cent in return. Behind the internet’s “free” services lies a multibillion-dollar economy built on personal data. Unlike a salary, which is paid once for a person’s work, personal data can be collected, analysed and sold repeatedly, allowing companies to profit from the same information for years.
Most internet services we use today, including e-mail, social media and online shopping platforms, are free of charge. Instead of charging users, companies profit by collecting their data. Data broker companies such as Equifax, Experian and Acxiom collect, organise and sell this information to other businesses. In 2024, the global data broker market was valued at $270 billion. With more than 5,000 data broker companies operating worldwide, billions of data points are collected every day. This includes a person’s name, contact number, address, age, purchase history, subscriptions, income, religious beliefs, political affiliations and even details about friends and family. The information comes from court records, vehicle registrations, online purchases, email addresses, IP addresses, blogs, loyalty cards, social media activity and browser fingerprints.
The process is largely invisible. Data is collected through website cookies, tracking pixels, mobile apps, ad trackers and search engines before being sold to retailers and businesses for targeted advertising, customer acquisition and personalised marketing. A company selling digital door locks, for example, can advertise directly to tech-savvy homeowners on social media. Insurance companies buy consumer data to identify people with risky behaviour and offer suitable policies, while political campaigns use voter data to target potential supporters and influence voting decisions.
Companies are interested in far more than names or phone numbers. By combining thousands of data points, they can predict what people are likely to buy, believe or do next. Those insights help businesses deliver highly targeted advertisements, recommend products and personalise marketing strategies that increase sales. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, generated US$160.6 billion in advertising revenue in 2024, with more than 90% of its total revenue coming from advertising. Amazon also earned approximately $56.2 billion from advertising the same year. Their business models demonstrate how information generated by ordinary people has become one of the digital economy’s most valuable commodities.
Real-world cases show how valuable that information has become. In 2021, one of the world’s largest period-tracking apps, Flo Health, was found sharing users’ pregnancy status, menstrual cycle information and other sensitive health data with Google, Facebook, AppsFlyer, Flurry and other third-party analytics companies. With more than 100 million users, the app later faced action from the US Federal Trade Commission for misleading users about its privacy practices. The case demonstrated how companies monetise sensitive health data for advertising and consumer profiling, proving that even deeply personal information can be turned into profit.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed the value of behavioural data. In 2014, researcher Aleksandr Kogan created the Facebook personality quiz This Is Your Digital Life. Around 270,000 users installed the app, while Facebook’s policies at the time also allowed data from their friends to be collected without informed consent. As a result, information from approximately 87 million Facebook users was harvested. Cambridge Analytica later used the data to build psychological profiles of voters, predict political preferences and deliver highly targeted political advertisements. The scandal showed that personal data can be used not only to predict human behaviour but also to influence it.
The profits do not end there. Acxiom holds information on 2.6 billion individuals across 36 countries and earns around US$1.3 billion annually. Experian earns over $9.7 billion each year, works with more than 150,000 businesses and maintains information on more than 200 million consumers. Equifax operates in 24 countries, earns around US$5 billion annually and holds records on more than 800 million individuals. People generate the raw information once. Companies continue profiting from it for years.
As personal data becomes increasingly valuable, a growing debate has emerged over who should benefit from it. Some experts argue that if personal data can generate value long after it is created, the people producing it should also share in that value rather than giving it away for free. As Ann Cavoukian, Founder of Privacy by Design, said, “Privacy is not about secrecy. It’s about control.” If companies can build multibillion-dollar businesses from information people generate for free, should individuals also be compensated for the value of their personal data?
