Big Data, Old Users, Personal Worlds: A Survey of Challenges and Resistance to Big Data Analytics in the EU

Organizations make extensive use of Big Data to classify and profile users, in order to effectively personalize their online messages. Big Data is also increasingly relied on as a photograph of society, creating expectations of an increasingly more accurate predictive science. Yet, there are systemic challenges in using Big Data as a comprehensive source of information, and there is also public resistance. We analyze Eurobarometer survey data from April 2016 to identify actual socio-demographical limitations of online traces, charting public awareness and attitudes towards the use of online information for content personalization across the European Union.