The Inkstained Mind: Big Brother 2.0 on your smartphone?

27 Apr 2011

Big Brother 2.0 on your smartphone?

This is an update to my previous post on both Apple and Google engaging in geo-tracking via smartphone...

The Privacy Rogues Gallery is growing: First Apple, then Google, and now Microsoft...

According to a new article on CNET: "Like Apple and Google, Microsoft collects records of the physical locations of customers who use its mobile operating system.

Windows Phone 7, supported by manufacturers including Dell, HTC, LG, Nokia, and Samsung, transmits to Microsoft a miniature data dump including a unique device ID, details about nearby Wi-Fi networks, and the phone's GPS-derived exact latitude and longitude."

Users of the products didn't have a clue - but apparently the enforcers of "law" have known about it - and have been using it for over a year.

If geo-tracking via mobile phones is so prevalent, and obviously useful for the powers-that-be, it cannot be a technical oversight by the engineers.

So... is it actually a special "service" created by corporations for the state? If it is, how does the state apparatus pay back the corporations? And are there more such secretive "arrangements" between the political class and the business class?

And just one other question: Is this Big Brother 2.0?

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WHAT IS ADVERTISING?

It's often called the world's second oldest profession.

But while the scope of the oldest one has changed little over time, the evolution in the way we communicate has had profound impact on Advertising.

In the ancient and medieval world, Advertising meant word-of-mouth. In the 1500s with the development of printing it became a 'paid public notice', disseminating the message to many. And it had Copy & Art.

Then came radio, TV, computer, cable TV, Internet, mobile phones, Internet on mobile, and it's still not done... Even what we perceive as 'change' is changing. Continuously.

So what is Advertising today?

Honestly, I don't know.

But I do know from a dozen years evolving with the business, that Advertising is most valued when it can make a tangible difference for the advertiser.

That has not changed. And probably won't.

UPDATE: Nothing's changed. But in a way, everything has.

As you see, my focus has shifted - evolved in a way - to a larger canvas. The shift or evolution was gradual, and may be have been discernable to the more observant reader.

While I was delving into the influence of media in society to better understand how perceptions are created, evolved and disseminated, I chanced upon a thread of knowledge that I frankly never knew existed.

My conclusion is that a deep pool of awareness and consciouness exists beyond the shallow narcissistic boundaries created by the convention view of social media and the Internet.

My aim is to send my readers down any path that can lead to this quenching pool.