I find it very curious that the concept behind the "Consumer Panopticon" was developed for the purpose of monitoring prisoners. As we discussed in class, Jeremy Bentham believed this system would be more efficient, since it reduced the number of guards needed in a prison. One guard could monitor several prisoners without being seen by the prisoners. As a result, the prisoners were better behaved because they were never sure of who was watching them.
Advertisers want to use the concept of the pan-opticon to monitor consumer activity to better serve them. Google and Google mail already use a variety of this concept in their advertising. They use keywords from your searches and emails to select which ads to display. The panopticon would take this one step further. Rather than looking for keywords in my searches or inbox, it would use my search history to select which types of advertisements to show me. In order to do this well though, someone somewhere would have to be storing information about my Internet activity.
While this is all well and good as far as advertising goes, there are also some major concerns people should keep in mind. The fact that someone somewhere will have access to your internet activity history should raise major privacy concerns. For all we know Google could secretly be a government operation aimed at compiling a database of detailed information about every Internet user. While this idea is far-fetched, I would not rule it out completely. After all we did pass the PATRIOT Act, in which we gave the government permission to invade our privacy for the supposed greater good.
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While Alali makes a strong case as to why we as a society should be concerned regarding the usage of a consumer panopticon, I for one am not extremely concerned with company's such as Google interfering with who I am as an individual and then sharing my internet history. Though Google actually operating secretly as a government agency is laughable, I realize (to a certain degree) that it is a legitimate fear that many Americans have believing that we are constantly being watched. While I agree that this idea of someone always looking over my shoulder is extremely unsettling, I also realize that I have done some things that I would not want e-mailed home to my parents. My point being, even with the feeling of constantly being observed, little of what the average citizen does is of any interest to any other citizen.
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