Youngsters beware, tech firms are snooping you!

Next time when Netflix or Amazon shows you what you should be watching or shopping next, do not just let that notification pass by. Your personal life - be it shopping, movie streaming, in-app experiences, long drives or late-night dinners - everything is being tracked, analysed and packaged into data sets for 'enhancing' consumer experiences which reach advertisers later.

What exactly do the tech firms know about you? Practically everything under the sun. Be it your location and address, relationship and work status, income level, educational and financial background, religious and political beliefs, communications, search and reading history, content consumption, social media behaviour, health data or shopping history, ever-smarter algorithms are busy crunching everything about you.

According to Thomas George, Senior Vice President and Head at CyberMedia Research (CMR), in a world driven by demanding and impatient consumers seeking instant gratification, tech companies have to remodel and reorient their business to offer superior consumer experience (CX).

"In doing so, they have to learn more about consumers to tailor offerings accordingly," George said. On April 16, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos told investors that the video streaming service would soon start releasing 'more specific and granular data and reporting' to different groups.

"First to our producers, then our members and, of course, to the press over time. The aim is to be more fully transparent about what people are watching on Netflix around the world," Sarandos said. Netflix CEO Hastings said the company will lean on to being more transparent "quarter by quarter".

The over-the-top (OTT) company in December revealed that more than 45 million accounts watched its horror movie "Bird Box" within the first seven days of its release. Netflix is also testing a new 'Top 10' feature that will show the 10 most popular TV series and films being watched by its 150 million subscribers. A New York Times report in January said that Amazon's advertising services are leveraging Machine Learning (ML) to dissect consumers' online buying habits.