When George Orwell wrote 1984, he may have been concerned that government was watching individuals. Perhaps if there was a modern rewrite, the issue would be that big business is watching and tracking our online movements. In today's news, Google is the one with their hand in the cookie jar. "Google has been "tricking" Apple's Safari browser into letting Google monitor Apple users' web-surfing behavior, the WSJ reports--even users who want this kind of tracking to be blocked." But they are not the only one out there.
With our "permission" or not, we are being tracked. On our smartphones, we are encouraged to let apps track where we physically are, when we surf the web, we are tracked on what we watch and read, and on cable, on what we watch on TV. And sophisticated programs take that data and predict what interests us and targets ads that may appeal to us.
Helpful or not, we are no longer invisible to big business. As we have become an online, mobile consumer, we no longer seem to mind who is tracking us; in fact, we are even sharing pieces of ourselves on social media sites. The thinking seems to be that as long as our financial data isn't compromised and it doesn't cost us anything, we are unconcerned. This news about Google doesn't seem to be getting much consumer response, but perhaps we should be more outraged.
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