Humans Reduced to Bits and Bytes

I just completed reading and reviewing all of the materials for week 5.  I now feel, in a word, "used".  Almost violated, though not quite. But certainly uneasy, and seemingly less than human. 

I have previously read articles in Harvard Business Review and the like about "Big Data" that explained how companies could use these volumes of data to better target their customers.  I thought it was really more an exercise in gleaning competitive advantage from "unstructured data" volumes.  That is until today.

Particularly after reading the introduction to The Numerati, and how mathematicians and programmers create algorithms from the world of data that is "a giant laboratory of human behavior" to target me more specifically, I feel vulnerable.  It's like they are cutting me down to just a few consumer preferences and behaviors while trying to stick a virtual siphon in my wallet.  And after reading how Tacoda uses cookies to track internet usage in order to determine patterns and essentially guess your next move, it is like every human being is being reduced to bits and bytes from simple little mouseclicks. 

And as if that wasn't enough, I read the article  Advertisers Get A Trove of Clues In Smartphones and it makes me feel almost unsafe.  Marketers can track my purchases and my location from my Smartphone to target me on something specifically nearby based on those pieces of information.  But if marketers can readily get that information, who else can??

Despite my uneasiness, this got my wheels turning and I had to do some more digging.  So I decided to research further Google AdWords to see more exactly how the technology works. 

AdWords allows keyword driven advertisements to show up on the right-hand side of the search page after a user search in Google. It is a pay-per-click service and sounds great for advertisers, though there are some things apparently that they too should keep in mind.  But after seeing it in further detail, particularly how marketers use my search words to target me, my concern is the personal information are companies able to track through the use of this technology.  Imagine how easily it is collected and how many companies can have it.  I sure hope they all have secure servers and upstanding employees!  I even reviewed Google's policy on information harvesting, but I am still not satisfied. 

To me this conjures the notion of Big Brother in George Orwell's book 1984, but it is even beyond that. Not only are they "watching you", but really their goal is to guess your next move and target a sale specifically for you at that juncture. 

It all feels right now as if I don't have the free will that I thought I did.  That the marketers know my next logical choice based on the preferences relayed in my previous searches, and they are going to help me make that choice.  And not having that free will would reduce me to something less than human, at least in a metaphysical sense. 

I have never felt so enlightened and disenfranchised at the same time!

On a separate note, during the writing of this week's blog I explored Google Analytics some more.  It is a statistics service offered by Google that allows webmasters and marketers to see detailed statistics about their web page. But during my research I discovered some funny videos in this regard.  It was a laugh I felt I desperately needed knowing what I know now.  I embedded one of them here for your pleasure.

Enjoy!