OPINIONS |
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If you ask me By Jason Trask [email protected] Columnist |
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Ever get that sinking feeling that someone is watching you? There is a very legitimate reason for this. They are.
Every day bits and pieces of each of our lives are shipped and stored into a database somewhere. This evil is not committed by Big Brother. No, these nefarious deeds are committed by corporations all across the Globe that feed off our own lack of patience and our desire to be pampered.Each time we purchase a book online, use our debit cards at the grocery store, apply for credit or create a MySpace page, our information is processed and stored.
To what purpose, you ask? Companies such as AOL and Yahoo are primarily marketing companies. Therefore they gather, use and sell information to market to their potential customers more accurately.Ever get credit card applications that you have not requested in the mail? Those applications are the result of a company, somewhere, pulling your credit file and deeming you eligible for the privilege of applying to become their indentured serf, er, I mean their credit card holder.
Within the past few decades we have come to expect everything faster and personalized to meet out individual needs, but at the same time we desire to remain completely anonymous. This paradox is simply not sustainable.Companies will continue to exploit our personal data that we give them access to. They will continue to invade your lives, market you, spin you and grip you with new and improved slogans and ad campaigns that are tailor-made to appeal to your tastes.
We no longer have the ability to remain anonymous. That right has been washed away with the black ink of the bottom line. The Gross National Product must march on, reaching ever higher, and petty issues such as personal freedoms and personal privacy will have to be laid down as fodder and trampled on as worthless in the great shadow of capitalistic gain.It is strange to me that many of us become very concerned with government identification cards or improper use of our social security numbers. It seems that every time something resembling national ID cards comes up everyone starts ranting about the antichrist, or Big Brother swooping in to steal our way of life, but we willingly allow huge corporations almost unlimited access to our personal information.
Do we not realize that the information that these corporations are gathering is more detailed than any of these governmental actions we fear so much?