Facebook isn’t Listening to You, but Amazon is!
IT Advertisement Capitalism
The advertisement inspired revenue generation effort started with Google in 1998. They realized the potential behind providing a free search service to the population on their systems, which positioned them to be able to directly monitor what you are interested in by tracking your search history results. Their knowing of what you like enabled them to track your interests and then provide those results to third-party organizations for advertisement revenue.
After 20 years in the “Search the Internet for Stuff” business, Google has revised and updated their search algorithm to become the best in the world. The advertisement revenue driven Internet economy ties directly to the worldwide leader in sales. Amazon has become the EVERYTHING store that sells anything and everything a person with an internet connection can want. With their improvements over the years to become the #1 online store, you can get almost anything that can be sold to be delivered to your doorstep by tomorrow at the click of a button.
The Rise of the Home Device
Watching Hollywood predict a Utopian future where our computer devices have made our lives simple at our command (aka Demolition Man, 1994), many creative IT organizations have strived to make those ideas a reality. After years of trying, we received Siri from Apple on our phones. Next we received Cortana from Microsoft and then we saw Amazon take things to the next level in 2014 with Amazon Alexa. This next level of an assistant provided a fixed device in our homes. To respond to our every question, operate our lights, and other external devices upon command. The tie between Alex and Amazon allowed a company that provided the same level of tracking Google did but for our every purchase online. Amazon became poised to redirect any and all advertisements based upon your purchase requests and not just inquiry’s into different unrelated topics. Not to be outdone by Amazon, Google released the Google Home Assistant in 2016. These items today are a normalized technological capability within our homes.
Other companies have developed plug-in capabilities that connect to these home devices (as more have sprung up) to recreate that “home of the future” feeling mentioned earlier. Now we can control our homes and other devices (even toasters and refrigerators) upon command. This has put a listening device inside millions of homes around the world that tracks everything we ask about and purchase histories.
Why Does it Feel Like The Big Tech Companies are Listening to Me?
They are listening too you. If you have a smart home device, these major tech corporations are listening to everything you inquire about after the “wake word” for that specific device is spoken. They were already selling out your data searches and purchases to advertisers who are not monogamous with whom they collect data from. This information is sold again and again. Google, Amazon, and Facebook are compiling thousands of data points about you and filing them under a tracking number to “anonymize” you. When that much data is collected, even if you are just a number, they will know who you and and what your interests are. Amazon’s “search and purchase” history system as well as Facebook’s “know everything about you and your friends” analytical system and Google’s “know everything” analytical systems take and record everything about you.
If you have been tracking this issue for a while, a data file called a “cookie” is a way to track who you are based on those search results. It can be tied to you internet web browser, IP address, email account, and anything else explaining how you connect to the internet. Thanks to the European Union (EU) pushing for transparency about this tracking by the global companies, we now see those pop-ups pointing out that the tracking is happening but most of us have a need to access those different websites. At least now we know they are tracking us. Either way, that information is being recorded and sold to advertisers for profit. The extent of the accuracy of these tracking devices not only pinpoint who we are, where we are via GPS (Android and Facebook have been caught tracking us even after we “opt out”), and our home IP addresses (maybe it’s time for a VPN).
We are Doing this to Ourselves
For the convenience of living in that futuristic home, we are purchasing these listening devices and intentionally putting them in our homes. Yes this makes many aspects of our lives easier, but we are selling ourselves and our information for the price of free access to different capabilities. One of these capabilities is to have a foreign device put in our to listen to us tell us what to record and monitor about us. Sometimes additional information is recorded, but the intent is to give us more of what we like at the price of our personal interest data. Just remember, if you are not personally paying for the product, YOU are the product. Sad truth is that, nowadays, even if you are paying for the service, YOU are STILL the product.
Maybe it’s time for a VPN:
- privateinternetaccess.com **My recommendation**