Who’s Looking Over Your Shoulder?

Now don’t take me for a paranoid, but every time I log on to the Web I get a sneaking suspicion that someone is looking over my shoulder. In reality, there’s no one behind me – they’re all in that box on my desk in front of me; it gives me access to the world, and them access to me.

The second you click on that URL, and choose something of interest, the data is sent to several different companies, all bent on figuring out what you want, then tailoring advertising targeted at what they think you want. There are over a hundred companies working on various phases of making you the target, some household names (Microsoft and Google, for example), and some you’ve never heard of.

If you’ve ever noticed the websites you go to circling for the kill with surprising accuracy, you’ll want to read this article from a recent Atlantic. It’s a chilling view of who’s mining your data, and why the “Opt-out” process doesn’t opt us out of being tracked. And we’re only getting started…