The other day I went to a store. I won’t name the store (not picking on them), but back in the day I used to use their app.
I deleted their app a long time ago but I still frequent their physical store since it’s convenient. On the occasion in question, I made my purchase using a card that I’d never used in their app.
The next time I logged into their website, they offered me suggestions based on the purchase I made in their store with a credit card that they should technically not know about.
It’s kinda creepy.
So I drive a vehicle that tells a company everywhere I go. I carry a device in my pocket that does the same.
And now, even without an app that may or may not attempt to track me, my personal purchases at their stores (at least) are being tracked.
Is it just me or is this starting to feel Orwellian?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
5 responses to “How Much Information Do They Need?”
I’ve thought this for a long time now. I call my insurance device in my car Big Brother.
It’s not just the insurance device these days. All new vehicles have GPS built in, so even if you say “no” to the insurance tracker, you’re still being tracked.
That’s the creepy part, because unless you purchase an older vehicle, you literally cannot opt out of the stalkery.
Yes, it does feel Orwellian. For what it is worth, I leave my cell phone at home, turned off most of the time. (I wouldn’t have gotten a cellphone at all, but it became rather impossible to find a pay phone about a decade ago, so for trips out of town I carry it.)
I argue the logic of that personally, since my car also has gps built in.
I do leave my phone in the car when I go shopping and sometimes my friends and I use the microwave as a faraday cage these days. Given my house no longer has home internet, cell phones in the house are the things that give me the creeps.
Not sure about totally eliminating them yet, however. I still love technology, I just highly disagree with how the humans running the corporations and even the government are currently…implementing them.
I like computers, and I do find cell phones occasionally useful. I usually don’t use GPS, except in big cities. I think technology in general is going somewhere weird. I can have a conversation with gpt-oss running on my laptop, which is strange (it runs on most computers that have 16 GB or more), and makes me wonder how long before computers are completely in control.