Hey Everyone,
As consumers we don’t seem as concerned about our privacy as we once did, in a world of apps and Surveillance capitalism being normalized by the likes of Google and Facebook, even more nefarious tracking is on its way.
Still the legal lawsuit against Google is really a shocking story, which barely fines Alphabet for its historically disturbing behavior. I think many of us suspected Google was indeed doing this. Where you opt-in once, like to be able to use Google maps, and they track you across all devices forever.
You don’t become an Advertising and Search monopoly by playing fair with users and customers. The technology giant tracked the location of users who opted out of location services on their devices, 40 US states said.
Google has been told to be transparent about location tracking in the future and develop a web page telling people about the data it collects. So it was find just $392 million dollars two weeks ago in November, 2022. The story was barely covered in the News.
I used to write more about privacy advocacy, but as China has taken the reigns in how Surveillance Capitalism will mature, I find myself not bothering as much with the topic. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s more that Silicon Valley and the National Defense sector of the U.S. steered us down a very bad outcome for the future of the internet.
I credit Google as basically the inventor of Surveillance Capitalism, which will grow into a very pervasive and lucrative business and not just in Advertising. China with its facial recognition advantage and censorship state with a social credit system has a huge advantage to be the heir apparent, even how TikTok sells your data to third parties is potentially more nefarious than previous iterations.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to OK, Robot to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.