Wherever you go, you are followed

Wherever you go, you are followed

Everyone loves that Hutch advertisement with the Pig-like Pug and pug-like boy and that song"you and I...in this beautiful world." The message being conveyed with that dog purposefully following the kid is "wherever you go, our network follows you".It seems that most working people and young people want to be "in touch" even while having lunch at the restaurant at the end of the universe.

But to me all this network stalking and information gathering is getting a bit too much. Just read this claim by TESCO: "can you buy potatoes in a store and see potato recipes in your inbox when you get home? we are working on it." Now that is scary.
Already there are at least a few hundred computers which know my birthday, my marital status, my telephone numbers, banks where I hold account, my credit card details, the vehicles I own, whether I live in my own house. The service departments of a few companies know all their gadgets I own. The credit card department knows my shopping patterns.Gmail knows the contents of my mails so it can helpfully pop up sites with related subjects.

Oh btw, did you know the site meter on this blog tells me exactly what time you came in, what kind of search brought you here, how much time you spent here and the link you exited to from here? The fact is that you are no longer alone and whatever you do is being tracked by some equipment ready to share the information with any other computer partnering with it!And there are not even laws protecting our privacy in this country and even if we had laws, we know how "easy" it is to get them implemented in this country.

Just see the paradox. On the one hand we complain when our neighbours ask us personal details but we are comfortable allowing some strangers to have access to all our private information. We drive long distances to find a quiet romantic getaway but we leave our mobile phones switched on.I guess we are also fast heading towards the situation when husbands and wives don't tell each other what is wrong with their marriage out of politeness but go on network televison and say how his nose picking bothers her or how her body odour offends him.

I dont know about you, but it certainly irritates me when some strange guy on phone tells me it is time for me to change my car because it is 7 years old and already had so many service requirements this year and what parts had to be replaced or when my chemist lists out the medicines I bought in the past few months. I dont want some guy at some credit card department making my purchases into a pattern and drawing a curve of my buying behaviour. This is my life I say. Just why dont these guys let me lead my own the way I want and go get one of their own!