I was taught that a gentleman never asks a lady her age. But is it still rude to find out how old she is behind her back and without her knowing?
What if I also secretly uncovered her dress size, her favourite perfume, her choice of movies and her address? I wonder if that would be inappropriate.
Because whether you like it or not, all this information and a lot more about you, your sex life and everyone and everything else you “like” or have ever liked, is readily available to anyone who cares to look.
This is a slightly (and only slightly) paranoid description of data mining, a very lucrative and unstoppable hybrid of junk mail and telemarketing that is sweeping the virtual nation.
Data miners electronically “scrape” your Facebook files, your Google accounts and the entire Internet for little bits of your unprotected personal information.
Once the information is gathered each piece can be sold for two-fifths of a cent. That doesn’t sound like much until you multiply it by the billions, and probably trillions of Internet transactions each day.
This is how data mining has grown into a multi billion dollar industry, a fraction of a cent at a time.
Information is purchased by companies of all sizes and used for target marketing.
Targeted advertising is much more effective than mass marketing which means this electronically pilfered data is a virtual gold mine.
Some say it is also virtually harmless. Most data is never seen by human eyes. Instead, electronic eyes analyze the stream of information, create personal profiles and initiate the appropriate action.
The preferred action is usually on-line ads, catalogues and credit card offers. These are customized according to the type of person your computer thinks you really are.
But there are concerns. Even those who are actively mining data agree that it’s a little creepy.
After innocently browsing at an online store, the ads and promos start popping up within minutes and follow you around for weeks from one site to another. That is a little freaky.
One parent complained that his two-year-old daughter was receiving her own mail at his home address. She may soon be the only toddler on the block with her own credit card.
And be careful if you order sexy lingerie online. Before you know it, your inquisitive youngsters will be ogling online ads on the home computer, featuring scantily clad underwear models.
But all this is relatively harmless. There are more serious concerns.
Every “like” you click reveals many underlying personality traits. Using those clicks, psychologists can easily (not necessarily accurately) determine personal traits such as IQ, sexuality, religion or politics.
This has rich commercial possibilities but it has a subversive application as well. Anyone is free to use the same data to support their own questionable activities.
Most Canadians don’t think about it much but there is a constant underlying anxiety about who might be watching or stalking or data mining.
It has been called a “panopticon” – a circular prison where you don’t know if you are being observed or not, so you assume you always are. Govern yourself accordingly.
I like to do my data mining the old-fashioned way by reading old letters and cards, newspaper clippings and yearbook photos.
It’s rewarding but doesn’t pay much.
However, electronic data mining yields huge dollars and people’s lives are being spied on for profit.
There is money to be made by scraping the virtual world’s trash.
I don’t know if this is good or bad. I’m leaning toward bad but then again, I’m just an old-fashioned guy.
