I, like, 98 percent of the rest of Canada's population (this may be a slight statistical exagerration) spend a significant portion of their day online for various reasons. 1) Because I am a student, a lot of my readings are online, as well as a lot of research material 2) it connects me to my friends and family--e-mail, facebook, blogger, tumblr, etc. 3) it entertains me (hello youtube!). While I truly believe that the internet is an amazing thing, and do not want to give it up any time soon, I have started noticing some things which are, for lack of a better phrase, scaring the crap out of me.
Whenever I feed my facebook addiction and log on (my other browser is loading facebook as I type) I notice that the ads on the side of my homepage all pertain to things that I frequently look up. Ads for obscure movies I want to see, upcoming book releases from my favourite authors, discount jewlery--it's all there, begging for me to click on it and spend. It's weird, and a little freaky. I started thinking about why my facebook would be sending me ads that appear to be catered specifically to me. And then it came to me: I never, ever, ever read the terms of agreement for anything that I sign up for. I know its bad, but I feel confident saying that most people are in the same boat as I am. Who really wants to read dozens of pages of absolute boring rambling? Not many. Well, maybe I should.
I always knew the internet was not the most secure of places to share personal information, and we've all heard the horror stories of viruses, hacked e-mails, and credit card theft. So, I've always been careful about my personal info on the net. But these cassy-specific ads are tangible proof that it is just so easy to give away bits of personal business online and not even realize it. Facebook knows what kinds of ads to give me, because I gave it permission in the terms of agreement to follow my facebook activities--what pages do I like? What groups do I search for? It's creepy, weird, kind of genius, and completely my own fault.
But despite all of this, to facebook I will go as soon as I click "publish post".
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