Data mining and narrow casting- Log 5

When people go on social media it is to connect with other people, to talk to their friends, not to give their information away.  When people talk about the good parts of technology being forgotten when media and technology are criticized, they often bring up the fact that now people can connect much easier.  I can have a conversation with someone across the world if I wanted.  But this brings in another dark side to it.  Because we give away so much information about ourselves when we do go online, the media companies sell this information to earn money, since media is free.
Data mining taints the good parts of media.  The part that I have almost unlimited access to so much information is darkened by the data being collected and sold on me.  The part that I can talk to my friends whenever I want is overshadowed by the corporations that now have even more data on me.  They know what I am doing, when I am doing it, and can even predict what will happen when I do it.  And where is this data even going?
Some of the information is being given to political parties so they can put me in a group full of people with similar lives and interests to me.  Then they can narrowcast, which means tailoring advertisements or campaigns to each group.
While this may be more effective, it is really annoying and creepy.  The only reason they want to know all of this information is so that they get reelected.  Meanwhile, we get bombarded with ads and campaigns that we wouldn't normally care about.
The companies that get our information create demographics and psychographics and put every single person into one.  This can be stereotyping, because while a lot of someone's personality may be on media, not all of it is.  No one can fully know the extent of a person, so the ads aren't always better.  But most of these ads that come out of narrowcasting are more persuasive and work better.  I may not need something in my life but because they tailored the ad for me, I will be more likely to buy it.
I want to be able to go on to media and technology and be myself without having to worry about everything I am revealing about myself.  I want to be able to make google searches without giving away my entire life story.  I want to be able to write this blog and not have the information on it sold to other corporations.  I understand that if the information about people wasn't sold, we wouldn't have the luxury of free google searches and media, but it would still be nice.