Koos Bekker, the recently retired CEO of listed media and internet giant Naspers, says that if you purchase online from one of the group’s e-commerce sites, it is able to gather large amounts of commercially-useful information about you.<\/p>\n
Naspers’ e-commerce sites in South Africa include OLX, and Kalahari.com.<\/p>\n
In an interview on news site, eNCA, Bekker said: <\/span>“Just consider this: we know, if you buy from us, an awful amount about you. Not only what you buy, but what you research, which is commercially-useful, but socially ambiguous.”<\/p>\n He said that if a site like Kalahari.com detected that he has a love of history books, and directed related material in his direction, he would be appreciative.<\/p>\n “But let\u2019s say I have cancer. Kalahari would also know that. Why? Because of the research I do, and think about what Google knows about you and what Facebook knows about you. If someone now starts sending me cancer treatments, I would quickly detect where this comes from and feel that it\u2019s a very severe intrusion on my privacy,” Bekker told eNCA<\/span>.<\/p>\n “So e-commerce and search companies know an awful amount about how my family is constructed, who has which problem in the household, who has which interests, who searches which sites.”<\/p>\n “Over time we\u2019ll find a way to extract the commercial element of that and make it more useful for the consumer, but also giving a certain amount of privacy protection. I guess the regulators are going to be active in this field.”<\/p>\n Forbes puts Bekker as the 1,213th richest person in the world with his wealth pegged at $1.5 billion (R16 billion).<\/span><\/p>\n Bekker led the founding team of M-Net\/MultiChoice pay-television business in 1985. He headed the MIH group in its international and internet expansion until 1997 when he became chief executive of Naspers.<\/p>\n Following a year sabbatical, he will succeed Ton Vosloo as non-executive chair at Naspers in April 2015.<\/p>\nMore on Koos Bekker<\/h3>\n