I may not be a Facebook daily poster or a Twitter frequent tweeter or an Instagram regular filter-er, but it's not like I'm off the grid. Type my name into your favorite search engine, and lots of references come up. Some are about this very column you are reading, some about my business, some about videos I've created. With just a few clicks more you can find out where I live, my age and a host of other details. Thankfully none of the most frequent hits are embarrassing. That said, there is a chance that if you go to page 47 or 63 or 71 there might be a link to a photo of me in bell bottoms and a Nehru jacket, a picture that is forever burned into my mind's eye but which I am hoping is lost to history.
All that's available to trollers casual or malevolent. Yet certain other entities have a more detailed window into the specifics of my life. I have a Google mail account, and use that company's maps, calendar and address book daily. Likewise I have an Amazon Prime account, and allow that company to know my buying habits and product preferences. And I've signed up for online accounts with banks and airlines and ride sharing services to name but a few. The goal of all is to be able to do all that I want from the comfort of my keyboard on a Sunday night while wearing pajamas and bunny slippers.
The remuneration I have agreed to in exchange for this access varies. Some of these companies charge me an outright fee, while others fold it into the cost of a transaction. Still others have a freemium model, offering me basic access for nothing, and asking me to pay if I want better services or more exclusive choices. And some cost me nothing at all, but use their time in front of my face to pitch me other products or services I might find appealing.
Actually, that's not completely correct. All of these services, regardless of whether I ante up one dollar or one hundred demand I give them one thing in return: information about me. After all, we're told that's what is really valuable. Companies want that data to refine their marketing and sales strategies so they can target me better with future offerings. For sure, my preference for a kind of restaurant or type of sweater can be used to entice me the next time I'm looking for a meal or some new clothes. That I understand. But I'm not really sure how knowing when I turn the light on in my bedroom will help them sell me anything beyond new bulbs.
And yet I am willing to part with a part of me as the price of entry. In order to make the our new smart light switches work, I had to sign up for an account with the manufacturer. I had to give them basic information about me, nothing that they couldn't get elsewhere online. Likewise with the new connected thermostat: name, rank and email required. And so now my turning those devices on or off or up or down is one more brush stroke in the portrait that is me.
I suppose that someone somewhere could purchase all those bits and put it to use. They could build a picture that would enable them to entice me with some kind of offer. After all, if you know I used a car service in Brooklyn to take me to a dinner reservation at 630PM for 4 people while my lights at home turned on at 700PM and the heat went up to 67 half an hour later, you would know for sure that I was going to – what? What exactly?
It's hard to imagine the pressure point that info would generate. But it's early days in all of this. Once they get the algorithm perfected, and are able to amalgamate the various disparate bits of information, there's no limit to what they might be able to do. They could target me for urges I didn't even know I have. And then I might indeed log in to find a popup ad for bell bottoms and Nehru jackets. Big Brother can work in insidious ways.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford should probably be more concerned about privacy. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
All that's available to trollers casual or malevolent. Yet certain other entities have a more detailed window into the specifics of my life. I have a Google mail account, and use that company's maps, calendar and address book daily. Likewise I have an Amazon Prime account, and allow that company to know my buying habits and product preferences. And I've signed up for online accounts with banks and airlines and ride sharing services to name but a few. The goal of all is to be able to do all that I want from the comfort of my keyboard on a Sunday night while wearing pajamas and bunny slippers.
The remuneration I have agreed to in exchange for this access varies. Some of these companies charge me an outright fee, while others fold it into the cost of a transaction. Still others have a freemium model, offering me basic access for nothing, and asking me to pay if I want better services or more exclusive choices. And some cost me nothing at all, but use their time in front of my face to pitch me other products or services I might find appealing.
Actually, that's not completely correct. All of these services, regardless of whether I ante up one dollar or one hundred demand I give them one thing in return: information about me. After all, we're told that's what is really valuable. Companies want that data to refine their marketing and sales strategies so they can target me better with future offerings. For sure, my preference for a kind of restaurant or type of sweater can be used to entice me the next time I'm looking for a meal or some new clothes. That I understand. But I'm not really sure how knowing when I turn the light on in my bedroom will help them sell me anything beyond new bulbs.
And yet I am willing to part with a part of me as the price of entry. In order to make the our new smart light switches work, I had to sign up for an account with the manufacturer. I had to give them basic information about me, nothing that they couldn't get elsewhere online. Likewise with the new connected thermostat: name, rank and email required. And so now my turning those devices on or off or up or down is one more brush stroke in the portrait that is me.
I suppose that someone somewhere could purchase all those bits and put it to use. They could build a picture that would enable them to entice me with some kind of offer. After all, if you know I used a car service in Brooklyn to take me to a dinner reservation at 630PM for 4 people while my lights at home turned on at 700PM and the heat went up to 67 half an hour later, you would know for sure that I was going to – what? What exactly?
It's hard to imagine the pressure point that info would generate. But it's early days in all of this. Once they get the algorithm perfected, and are able to amalgamate the various disparate bits of information, there's no limit to what they might be able to do. They could target me for urges I didn't even know I have. And then I might indeed log in to find a popup ad for bell bottoms and Nehru jackets. Big Brother can work in insidious ways.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford should probably be more concerned about privacy. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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