My Facebook story
A couple of weeks ago, was in Home Depot with the Mrs., looking at counter tops and kitchen sinks. It was a spur-of-the-moment stop. We didn't talk to any sales reps, just browsed around in the store. We didn't make any purchases. For all intents and purposes, we weren't customers that day. She had her iPhone in her purse, but didn't use it at any time. My phone stayed in the car out in the parking lot.
On Facebook the next day, several of the ads I saw were for kitchen sinks at Home Depot. I can't recall seeing many Home Depot ads on FB before, and most certainly never saw an ad for kitchen sinks before, nor had ever posted anything about kitchen sinks. But somehow those bastards knew we had been in Home Depot and had been looking at kitchen sinks. Not sure who's the bastard in this case - Apple for tracking via the iPhone, Home Depot for providing location data to within a few feet even though we never touched any WiFi (if they even offer it?) or agreed to be tracked in their store, or Facebook for weaving all of those strands together to desperately try to make a few potential pennies off a click for something their algorithms said my wife had been perusing.
That really hammered-home the point that these fuckers are tracking our every move. If I were in the tin-foil hat brigade, I would say the gubermint doesn't need to build an Orwellian tracking and control system, the corporations have already built most of it for them.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
