An article titled “How Facebook makes creepy behavior normal” caught my eye this morning. Before reading the article, I quickly noted how true this statement is. People spend varying amounts of time on the social networking site virtually stalking his/her friends: reading wall posts, looking at pictures, learning travel plans, dinner plans, holiday plans – you name it.
But the stalking doesn’t stop there. To some extent, and depending on users’ privacy policies, people can even stalk friends of friends. This of course leads to the awkward inner dialogue that occurs when you meet (in person) one of these “friends of a friend” and you must try to remember if you have actually met the person (in person) before - or if you simply recognize the face and recall certain facts about him/her from stalking a Facebook page… Yep, that gets weird.
Nevertheless, this is part of the reason that Facebook was created -- to allow people to stay connected with each other.
Now it seems that online shoppers are being stalked, as well. As Julie Castignetti points out in her post, a couple of recent articles in The Economist explain that online shoppers are being tracked (and judged) by retailers. Cookies reveal all of the places where online shoppers have been browsing, and this cookie trail leads online retailers to make assumptions about income bracket, age and sex. Retailers are even tracking what type of computer an online shopper is using: “Apple computer-owners are on average better-off than Windows PC users, and firms may offer them pricier options.”
One of the articles goes on to offer tips about how to beat the system and trick the online retailers into thinking that you are on a budget and thus offering you a lower price. However, should online shoppers even have to do this? Where do we draw the line? Is this type of stalking permissible?
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