Nothing Is Free: What Your Data Worth and Who Paying for It

Every app on your phone says it's free. But free to download doesn't mean free.Eleven-year-old Zara uses fourteen apps every day and has never thought much about why they don't cost money. Then her mother, who works in tech, shows her something on a laptop: an advertising targeting platform that knows Zara's age, city, interests, and daily habits in remarkable detail. The apps didn't just give Zara tools. They gave the companies behind them something too: her data, her attention, and a profile of her life that's more complete than she ever imagined.Nothing Is Free takes middle-grade readers inside the attention economy and the data supply chain in language that's honest, clear, and built for how young people actually think. Readers will learn: - Why free apps aren't actually free, and what currency they run on- How behavioral data becomes advertising profiles