Continuing on the privacy (or lack thereof) theme from last week's post -- today I want to talk more about commercial spying.  Firstly, is what im referring to spying at all?  Is the process by which companies engage data management companies to embed tiny "data trackers" into your computers after visiting certain -- virtually all, websites spying? How does your opinion change when the data is then used to track where you go, what you look for and how frequently you visit?  As we all know, the problem, or solution, is cookies. But despite the rather generic name, multiple platforms have numerous names for such a "technological development".  In Chrome it's called incognito mode, in safarie it's called private browsing-- whatever the name (although I give more credit to google for creative naming) the feature itself is widely used....
The cookies are transmitting data back into companies who then sell it in a cat and mouse game designed to bombard you with ads they know you at least have some interest in. Sometimes cookies can be good....they allow CNN.com to remember you like the Asian addition and weather.com to know its NYC weather your interested in.   Problem is, you don't know when -- and worse who is collecting this info and whether its being used for simple recognition purposes or more ominously, to build a complete profile of you -- ideally to be sold to a direct marketer looking to sell to you.  I think the tracking of ones web presence needs to be taken very seriously and people should have more awareness of what data is being collected and what it's being used for.  In the meantime, it's incognito mode for me...