This raised the hairs on the back of my neck:
Imagine the scenario. You’re in a bad relationship. You want out. Suddenly, magically, targeted ads start showing up all around you — ads for lawyers, counsellors, mid-life-crisis objects of desire. Your credit card company has sold your profile, and everyone is excited to be the first to offer you those services you need – before even you know you need it. Score one for the semantic web.
We’re bringing it on ourselves. We are inputting our lives into systems whose success depends on monetizing trends, and we are absolute in our own consistency as subjects — after all, that’s how you get those loyalty points right? But is there a line? Recognizing and monetizing a home move? An affair? A divorce? Political affiliation? Terminal illness?
Perhaps it’s time to say welcome to our new profiling overlords… or maybe we should just go out and buy both premium birdseed AND cheap motor oil at Canadian Tire. Ha. That’ll learn ’em.