http://whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=shortSpyTV
Found this longish article about spyware (in particular set top boxes), and how they are used to monitor your behavior. I find that most of what the article talked about can be equally applied to the Internet. A few choice excerpts: --- With interactive television every click of your remote control goes into a database. This is called your TV set�s �click stream�, and it can be analyzed to create a surprisingly sophisticated picture of who you are and what motivates you (sometimes called �telegraphics�). Such profiles of households or individuals can then be used to target consumers with direct marketing techniques, through their television, in the mail or over the phone. Your television will be able to show you something, monitor how you respond, and then show you something else, working on you over time until it you exhibit the desired behavior. --- But interactive television is a perfect example of the way that new technology is challenging the whole concept of personally identifiable information. For instance, given just a birthday and a ZIP code, direct marketers claim they can match members of the public to existing databases of consumer information with 97% accuracy. --- Telegraphics is vital in any strategy to keep you in front of the screen. How do you and your family use television? What content on TV, and situations outside, combine to make you watch more? When do you turn it off altogether? How can you be stopped from doing this? --- None of the techniques listed in this article are limited to the work of selling soap or toothpaste. Every one of them has already been applied in various countries to the work of selling politicians, worldviews and political ideals. The only thing that has been missing is the automation, the two-way pipe in and out of individual households and the computers to make the decisions.
