The question that aroused in our discussion was whether it is a big deal for these companies to have this information on us. I tried to take a stand that I think it is harmless for companies to learn our interests, our demographic info, and even our click stream. Especially for advertising purposes. I have no problem with ads being targeted towards me and my interests. Someone in the class mentioned that these marketers were in the wrong because they were "making" us buy things, or use our resources. I absolutely disagree with that statement. Advertisements do not make you buy anything, but only present information that makes you aware of what is available. If they are lucky it will spark your interests and you will click on the ad to look further into their product/service, however it is totally up to the individual to decide whether to buy anything. Therefore I think that the information used by marketers is very harmless and very efficient.
Another concept that was brought about in the class room was how people can access information about each other (ie. Google my name). Again, I have Googled myself, as well as others, and I do not think that there is any information available that you would not want available. I am a 21 year-old male student at Hobart College who plays on the lacrosse team and comes from Syracuse, NY. That's about all you will find about me when Googling, and personally I could careless who knows that information about me. If you search for images, again, you will find nothing but harmless photos, such as action lacrosse shots or media guide pictures which other people have access to anyways. So I am not sure what people would be afraid of here.
The only information that I would be nervous about dealing out is anything that could be used against me in identity theft (SS #, Credit Card Number, etc.). An example of negative way your clickstream could be used against you that was mentioned in class, was if your boss found out you were looking at porn on a work computer. Well if I am an employer I would like to know who is doing this because the do not deserve to work for me. The monitoring and surveillance strides that have been made in the recent future have proved to be very practical in business applications. As of right now I am not totally against the idea of companies collecting our information and data. I seem to disagree with Andrejevic's biased view that companies are trying to hurt us with our information. As we move along in the book and with further classs discussions, my view could change, but we will see.
1 comment:
I like your point about the way businesses have become more efficient because of their ability to monitor their employees because that is definitely true. You don't want someone to be just surfing the web instead of doing actual work. Also, I agree that it was a great idea for Google and the others who target us with specific ads. It was a genius marketing plan by whoever came up with it.
Post a Comment