Companies that monitor our cell phone, tablet and computer use are growing more and more sophisticated.
Many of us are aware that we are tracked –stalked, actually – by algorithms when we use our cell phone. Our phones are capable of telling advertisers – and I guess the government – when we get up, when we go to bed, the places we visit, what we buy, what we search for, even what we are thinking and certainly what we are saying. Now, according to an article in today’s New York Times, statistical modeling is being used to connect our cell phone use with our table use and the use of our work and home computers.
These devices may have absolutely no connection to each other, but heavy monitoring of digital networks, coupled with some pretty fancy math, links them and us to advertisers.
So while at work you may use your desktop to search for a Paris hotel. Later that night, on your cell phone, you could receive an ad for the InterContinental Paris Le Grand.
As I have said before in other posts, digital communications – the Internet, apps, etc. – represent wonderful technology but also serve as the biggest con since Ponzi. The con amounts to this: Give us everything we need to effectively and dramatically market you and we will tell you who won the 1976 World Series, the best way to make waffles and the number of Academy Awards won by Robert Di Niro.
This gross invasion of privacy is both offensive and frightening, at least for me.
Maybe not so much for the guy who needs a room in Paris.
Still, there are flaws in the process.
I recently went on-line in search of a digital SLR camera. I found what I wanted and bought it. Since then, my devices have been serving up ads for digital cameras. Made me feel for sorry for the retailers who paid good money to target likely customers. The algorithms are smart, but not smart enough to know that I am among the least likely of customers.
In a way, that was quite satisfying.
By Lanny Morgnanesi
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