Much of what we do on the internet is analyzed and used by others.
I see Gmail ads reflecting the content of my recent emails. I see other hints that my email and browser search targets are being “read”, not by people but by algorithms.
This is not new. It is well known. The internet is an unrestricted capitalistic marketplace as well as an unrestricted information exchange. The speed of technological progress exceeds the speed of evolution of constructs to govern its use. We give up privacy. Sometimes we don’t know exactly when it is happening to us, but we do know that it is happening.
I am reflecting on a recent instance that for some reason hit me harder than others.
We traveled from San Francisco to New York to see our daughter Emma graduate from college. We booked plane flights, a hotel, and a rental car. Online, of course. So easy. The day before the trip I brought up Google Maps to get a map from the airport to Emma’s boyfriend’s apartment. On the map, with no prompt from me, was the date and time of our arrival at JFK, written under the airport. And there was a mark on the location of our hotel, with the dates of our stay listed beneath the hotel logo.
Convenient? Yes. Surprising? Yes and no. Scary? Yes! The algorithms know we are traveling, and for how long we’ll be gone. Exactly the kind of thing a thief would like to know.
As I write this from New York, is our San Francisco apartment being robbed? Google knows who is out of town right now. I am not sure I like that. Seems like an easy hack to get that information about me. Am I to trust Google with this information? Who is “Google”, anyway? Is it even an entity to which the term “trust” can be applied?
This is all above-board. Somewhere deep in “terms of service” I am sure that I agreed to let Google use my information. I shudder at the thought of the other uses of my information, without my agreement, by government agencies I don’t know, with no real oversight, and quite possibly with either malicious political intent or damaging side effects. That’s for another blog.
This is just one small example of the “privacy for functionality” trade-off. Google Maps is an awesome tool that took immense intellect and labor to create. I use it often. I use it “for free”. Well, not exactly free. I give up a bit of my privacy to use it. Is that a fair price?
I am not going to try to get “off the grid”. I love what I get from the internet. I am concerned, though, about this sense of constantly being watched. It does make things less fun somehow. Takes something away from that joy of vast access and incredible functionality. I will think about this some more. It is important to understand the intrusion upon privacy when using one of our most powerful modern tools.