Yesterday's events shouldn't have surprised me. Companies have been tracing our movements through our cellphones for years now.
It's just, I don't get out much. It came as a bit of a shock. It's the first time it happened to me.
Grocery day. I fired up the Prius for its weekly excursion. Tucked my LG Tribute phone in my back pocket and forgot about it. It was on, but at no point did I take it out of my pocket or use it during my voyage.
I took a different route than usual. I drove past Smith's Auto Body, and thought for a minute about some work the car needs. Then I forgot about it. (It's been running fine despite its bent frame for three years now.) Got to the shopping plaza feeling hungry. Decided to grab lunch at a Mexican chain so I wouldn't overspend on groceries on account of an empty stomach. Had a passable taco salad. Paid with cash. Then I shopped for my groceries. Remembered diapers for my geriatric dog. Regular baby diapers work best, and cost a fraction what the pet ones do. Paid with a debit card, but didn't use any kind of loyalty or rewards card. No coupons either. Came home.
A couple of odd things happened. When I logged into Facebook, an ad for Smith's Auto Body blinked at me from the side. That's strange, I though. I was just thinking about them earlier today.
Then I scrolled through my feed. Suddenly, Facebook thinks I'm a dad. Sponsored Amazon ads are offering me different brands of diapers, sure, but also toys, kids play sets, all kinds of bright plastic monstrosities.
That night, when I took out my phone to charge it, it gave me a notification I'd never seen before. It was from Google Maps. "Leave a review of the Mexican restaurant and help your friends!" it said.
Now why the hell would it want me to do that? I thought.
That's when it hit me. I'd been tracked.
I bought this phone over two years ago for all of $40. I pay as much again every month for unlimited talk and text and more data than I ever use. It is not a powerhouse - more like a rusty Model T. It's only got enough storage to run a few apps. I use it to call my mother once a week, track my running workouts, and read e-books. It's enough. And as much as I've gotten used to my clicks and searches being tracked on the internet, this is the first time (other than exercise tracking) that I've found my movements in the real world coming back to face me through my browser window.
I guess I forgot to turn off the GPS after my last run. But it's strange that the Google Maps application hit me with a notification when I didn't even have Maps running. I track my exercise with a different program entirely. What's also weird is that I had data services switched off. That means that this old dinosaur of a phone had to sit on this location info until I made it home to wifi and it could radio up to the mother ship. It must have talked to the restaurant's wifi as well. How else could it have known that I went into that particular part of that building, and that I stayed long enough to eat a meal? What else did it tell the restaurant about me?
And either the grocery store had my movements tracked with their own wifi routers to the aisle, or they've colluded with the credit card processor, a third party advertising service, Amazon, and Facebook to make use of my diaper purchase in a spectacularly inappropriate ad targeting campaign.
Should it bother me that Google knows where I've driven and what I had for lunch? Maybe not. It's not like I've got anything to hide. (I'm writing about it here, after all.) But I can think of lots of reasons why sharing this information isn't in my best interests. Health insurance companies might be interested in my eating habits. If I stopped at the tobacconist, would that affect my premiums? What about all the jogging I do? Car insurance companies would certainly like to know where I drive, and how often, and how fast.
Actually, all kinds of actuaries must be salivating over all this fresh data. Which means law enforcement isn't going to be far behind. Is our presence in the vicinity of a crime enough to make us into a suspect?
Fifteen years ago, the only people who had their movements tracked like this were convicts on parole. Now we pay for the privilege.
I didn't write a review of the Mexican restaurant. If they want me to do that, they can pay me for it.
Come to think of it, I'd like to get some money from Google for my location data, too. It's obviously worth something to them.
If you use smartphone with Android (iPhones are no difference, just different company benefits from you) , you automatically agree that Google checks all your activities. You can request them to not display this notification to you, but you can't stop them from collecting all of those information about you.
Ugh, I know. We sign away so many rights with those terms and conditions pages. No wonder they make them so hard to read and understand.
Everything.
good read and SO TRUE. Having nothing to hide is besides the point entirely <3
I'm glad you recognize this! Just because something I'm doing is legal doesn't mean I want the whole world to know. We don't allow cameras in our bathrooms, do we?
Thanks for re-steeming my post!
exactly. also ..i mean we can have all transparency but that means EVERYONE should be able to look into EVERYONE. the fact that some of us are allowed to hide and the rest of us aren't totally messes that up. Its massive control knowing all the habits of someone.... you can predict them. Manipulate them.
While the present inequity in data sharing is disconcerting, it is also inevitable and unavoidable, but temporary.
Before long Eric Schmidt of Google's movements, every conversation held behind closed doors at NSA headquarters, and every gift made by lobbyists, will be just as available to us, as ours are now to them.
They won't like it, but they can't arrest the progress of technology any more than can we.
I'd like to think this is true. But who is writing the code that'll make this happen?
Kim Dot Com, for one. Many unnamed hax0rz are also. The greatest strength of the technological revolution is that it is being undertaken by myriad and diverse actors, many of whom are being targeted by TPTB for their opposition to the status quo.
That motivates many to act.
Each tiny progress adds only a bit of potential. Cumulatively, these bits of progress add up to paradigm shifts, over time. It's like the slow flow of lava from a volcano.
What was before is utterly eradicated, and something new has replaced it, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.
I hope you're right. The status quo has a lot of money and resources to throw behind keeping things the way they want, and enough marketing savvy to convince folks that's how they want it, too.
There have always been those whose fortunes depended on keeping technological progress at bay, and they have always lost, either as technology progressed no matter how they tried to suppress it, or as catastrophe overcame civilization itself, including them.
The tracking with the technology age has gotten out of hand. I personally find stuff like this to be creepy.
It's creepy enough reading about it. That's why it was such a shock to suddenly experience so much first-hand.
I always leave the location turned off unless I actually need directions and I've gotten so I'll only use a location's WiFi if I need to use data.
I'm not hiding anything, just playing hard to get. Someday maybe they'll offer me money because I'm like a rare Pokemon card.
I usually switch all that stuff off as well. I guess this must have been the first time I forgot.
We should play hard to get. What gives these jokers such an interest in collecting and selling our data? The fact that they build our phones?
It's all about marketing & advertising. If they know what you've been buying and where you've been going they can tailor ads specifically targeted for you. Like someone else mentioned, the NSA gets all of this information too, Google has been all too willing to provide it when the gubmint comes a knockin. In turn, they let Google get away with legally questionable stuff.
George Orwell wrote all about it, but he was off by about 30 years.
Right about Orwell. Huxley's Brave New World was prescient, too, with it's predictions of the populace entertaining itself to death and popping pills to feel better.
And it all fits into Sir John Glubb's narrative.
The funny thing is, it'll be the poorer countries that will weather the coming storm best of all.
I found that Facebook Messenger is the worst. I never install it on my phones!
I don't either! Partly because it's so invasive - that list of permissions is off the hook! And partly because my phone doesn't have enough storage left for it.
thankfully i still have a stupid phone (flip)... and my good ole post it notes for life's daily errands !
Wow, that is absolutely sickening and terrifying too. I'm so glad I still haven't caved and got a cellphone...
Oh, good on you! Are you still using a landline?
Around here a landline phone costs more than cellular. And we're pressured into cellphones because The Wife runs an AirBnB, and they require you install their app on a phone before you can open an account.
The worst thing about the cell: I can't understand a damn thing people say over the lousy connection. When I was a kid, you could hear the other person breathing at the other end of the line. Now I've got to shout "What?" into the receiver a dozen times a minute.
HAHAA Yes, I have a landline, but I hardly ever use it. I talk to people mostly on my laptop, but I never bring my laptop anywhere with me. When I go out, I an technologyless lol :) I'm not sure if it's more expensive than having a cell, I just stay away from cells because I know I'll have that thing out all the time, and just be addicted! This way I can close my laptop, go outside and enjoy the day, do my work, without hearing or being tempted by any notifications :)
On a small phone? Ew.
The last 3 paragraphs really bring the point (and the worries) home. I hadn't considered those things. I'm usually of the 'who cares about your data?' crowd, or in favor of complete transparency in a kind of 'secrets are lies' (The Circle, 2017) manner.