Every breath you take, every move you make, I’ll be watching you.. lyrics of a song by POLICE.. or something like that.
IoE, Internet of Everything will soon be as commonplace as having a TV in every room!
What is it and why should you be concerned or even care?
Well, did you know the use of every object we see and use for our pleasure, work and just plain living will soon be collected and stored in such a way to be used for market research, to optimize product or system performance and then dumped in a smart database all to support meaningful trends in predictive analysis; in short, be packaged and sold to marketers, political machines and the unscrupulous..
It already has begun. Take a short walk with me here. The moment you wake up – you have a specific routine, most everyone sane does, it’s needed to maintain this elusive state of sanity. As we go about our day we travel or venture off to that place – some call work; finish there and head back to our safe place called home. From the moment you woke to when you sleep again, all those things most of us can remember as a normal day.
Now add some data collection devices like a smartphone that you cannot do without.. even in the bathroom! Then have a monitor device on every appliance and room in your home, your car and office. Every move, decision, action you have made that day is collected and stored in the cloud for later data analysis. By the way, all of your friends, coworkers, neighbors that are equipped will contribute to these data collection efforts and said contribution stacked, sliced and manipulated in value chunks for the highest bidder; because all your encounters with them sweeten the data..
You do know, there are cities that are using biometrics such as – the way someone walks, talks, coupled with facial features to ID that person without them even knowing.. been going on for sometime now. Granted, there are solid arguments for catching the dubbed terrorist; but at what expense? Conspiracy Theorist say it’s the Big Lie – This data is solid Gold to Marketers who will pay untold billions in the coming year!
Here in the thing, you can watch what is happening – wonder about it – or profit from it. Now you do not always need to associate profit with money, you can always just be smart about it and be better prepared like when a structured opportunities arise; me, I like the money aspects! Just saying..
Take a look at one the biggest players, Bezos at Amazon, his empire is firmly built upon his algorithms that gather your unique surfing and purchase habits on his site… your database of habits used over and over again; all the while stored and augmented with every click of your mouse.
Your digital footprint on all things made digital through your interactions is the next BIG business!! Soon the use of your social security number will not be necessary. Soon you will have your own unique digital identifier way more valuable than precious metals.
Can you imagine how valuable to marketers it would be – to be able to read your mind; yes, in effect that is what it would be. The early coined name for this digitizing of YOU is called Consumer Predictive Analysis. In effect using your habits or decisions in your daily life to magically place the exact service, product or idea at the appropriate time to effect a desired decision / result / outcome. You already see it in day to day web surfing. Your previous search for the new Jeep Cherokee moments later has an ad for the local Jeep Dealer!?
If your privacy is your concern, no worries – you have none! Unless you decide soon to be off the grid, grow and raise your own food and harvest your own energy, incidentally – they already have you!
What a time we all live in, greed has done us in and I feel it will get worst, especially if you do what some people do, they ignore it’s happening.
Here’s to your digital health!
PS. Remember the old computer age phase, Garbage in so Garbage out!? Maybe it’s time for you to create more digital identities to begin the dilution of the one are creating now… Wake up! Being connected = no privacy!!
