Thursday, June 29, 2006

InfoWorld Tech Watch | Google Labs goes Big Brother


Since I'm suffering from insomnia right this moment, I thought I'd post this article link before it gets too out of date. Whew, good thing I put my mic on mute after reading this article, although I'll be darned if I will remember to enable it for (yes, I'm too shy to publish my name here, although I was close!).

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

What a surprise....governments and companies trying to get a "competative advantage" basically over our consious minds.

I think the argument is that if you control with a carrot as opposed to a stick, it isn't control at all.

"The cow actually wanted to go to slaughter....didn't you see it follow that bit of food right into those large whirling blades?"

I actually don't think people so much want targeted ads, as they do NOT want the constant and almost random barrage of random advertizing garbage that is currently insulting our senses.

But is a free choice really free if you are only presented with particular carrots....even if they are the flavor carrots you have always liked?

Is our future actually one where we will passively sit on our behinds while companies dangle consumables before us for us to consume. (and of course pay for)

Where is the adventure.... were is the trial..... where is te freedom and choice in that. (at the very least, the manipulation has to at the very least be totally known and transparent)

Angela said...

I'm not sure what article you were reading, but I was more concerned with the privacy issues of people listening on MY microphone at home. I'd hate to have my kids hauled away by DSS because they heard me yelling at them or something.

In terms of context sensitive ads, I have no problem with that. Hotmail used to always have stupid dating ads which just annoyed me to no end since I am happily married and they should know it if they are paying any attention to my email. Gmail on the other hand gives nice relevant ads on soccer, BMWs, etc, that I could actually use. OK, it is a bit creepy if you realize there are some bots cruising your emails to search for keywords for ad placement, but this soccer mom has got pretty boring mundane emails. If I'm going to be bombarded with ads, it better be of stuff that is relevant to me.

Then again, notice that I haven't signed up for ad sense here as I wouldn't want to subject my readers to these ads (watch me eat my words someday!).

Anonymous said...

since I am happily married

Awwwww... Damn!

Oh, wait. Was my mic on when I said that?

Ahem, Mr. Big Brother, can we purge that from the cache and replace it with "Congratulations, I am so happy for you"?

;)