The Internet Knows

So today as I was listening to pirated music, thinking about how much my feet and legs hurt, and was studying the link between 60′s Communism and the modern energy industry when I got an email from StumbleUpon giving me recommended pages I should check out.  Amazingly, it recommended I read an article that found that P2P music sharing has no effect on the music industry, it showed me a page about plantar fasciitis which looked interesting, it said I should check out the Forbes page on the energy industry, and for some reason thinks I want to read more about Communism, and Red Rosa.  How on earth did it know!?

Although on the average day I honestly do none of those things, someone out there thinks I am interested in communism, the energy industry, music piracy, and arthritis pain.  That got me thinking though, because I am realizing that the internet is getting increasingly smarter, and it is amazing what they know about us.

If you have spent any time on Facebook recently, you might notice that the ads on the side bar are not so random anymore.  They can pull information from your recent purchases on Amazon, your Google search history, and pretty much everything else, and over time they start finding trends in your shopping and searching and show ads that are custom tailored to have the highest chance of you clicking.  But how far is too far?

There have been a lot of people that suggest this technology should be used to screen potential terrorists shopping for supplies on American soil, using the Patriot Act to justify this government oversight.  I don’t want to get political here, but I can see a few issues about this and I hope you do too.  I am not a fan of terrorists, and personally if they are stupid enough to shop on Amazon they deserve to be caught.

But really, I am sure some day the advertising agencies will understand us so well they will know what we will want to buy 6 months before we want to buy it, and if you can tell me for sure someone will buy a bulletproof vest, tactical clothing, and ammunition for an assault rifle 6 months before it happens, I feel like you should at least tell someone so they are paying attention when it happens (which should be happening anyway in my humble opinion).  So hopefully you reading this doesn’t peg you as a terrorist!  Happy browsing!

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