Consumer Panopticon or Big Brother??

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.

Response to Sims Frazier's G Phone and Security

In his posting, Sims illustrates how the very advantages of the g phone may lead invasion of privacy. While the concerns Sims raises are very real, I believe that Google can prevent nefarious use of the information they gather. As we have discussed extensively this semester, code is the law as far as computers and the Internet are concerned. And Google’s employees are the best and brightest. If consumers are concerned about privacy invasion posed by their technology, they can write their code in such a way that the information they gather can only be used for the purpose of more efficient advertisement. The real ethical question is whether or not Google should be responsible for putting these roadblocks up in advance of consumer complaints. Since most computer users are not aware of the ethical and privacy issues, I believe that Google and other computer and Internet companies should include protecting the privacy of their users in their realm of corporate responsibility.