rareexample

Opened my browser today and saw a lovely message saying I was getting close to my bandwidth usage. My first thought was cool, thanks for the warning. My next thought was, how the fuck did they do that and is that even legal?

I mean, thanks for looking out for me, but are they looking out for users or looking into users. I gather the ladder since corporations don’t give a fuck about you. Why not a simple email so I can see this info when I choose, not forced into my browser when I have some important xbox news to read. Feels like an invasion of my privacy.

Then I got to thinking, if they can pop into any website I visit, they must surely keep track of everyone’s browsing statistics. What sites you visit, what music you purchase, what movies you watch, gathering all that information to use against you when it comes time to pricing or advertising. Then you think, hey they probably track all that television your household watches, the phone calls you make since all your services are with them.

What could they do with all that information? Make money of course, by selling it to advertisers. How far are we until television and internet ads are directed directly at you. What I mean is, let’s say you’ve been planing a snowboarding trip and checking prices online and your neighbor has been checking car prices online, then you both watch American Idol. During the intermission, you’ll see commercials about Snowboarding and he’ll see commercials about Nissan Versa’s or what not. Facebook’s already using this kind of thing with their facebook ads, it’s only a matter of time.

My wife tells me I shouldn’t think so much but you gotta wonder. Anyhow, I feel violated and going to go read my xbox news now.