The monetization of surveillance isn’t something I had ever really given a thought to. I knew websites made money off advertisements that were often targeted to myself, but I didn’t know the extent to which targeted advertising affected companies. In the podcast from this week, we find out that Google’s profits increasing over 3500% in a three year period thanks to the introduction and use of targeted advertising. That’s insane. It’s also insane to think about the fact that all that data used to just sit, unused. I think they referred to it as ‘data exhaust.’ It didn’t really occur to me that someone had to think to use this data to a company’s advantage. The fact that Google originally looked down upon online advertising seems a bit off to me, since now whenever you google something, the first few search results are from organizations that have paid loads of money to have their websites pop up first; and that’s not even the targeted advertising being talked about.

The article about Target and the pregnant teen has always been an interesting story to me since the first time I heard about it in high school. To my knowledge, I haven’t ever received a physical catalog or anything from any company I frequent with content catered to me; it always seems to be just a general, whole store catalog. But since I’ve never really thought about it before, I will be interested to see how differently I look at the things I’m sent from now on. I honestly think that it’s very clever of companies to do this targeted advertising. Their goal is to make money, and if they can find ways to do just that, why not do it? People nowadays know that companies are constantly collecting data on them, so we should almost expect things like this to happen. I know that’s not a super popular opinion, but I’m definitely part of that group that says, “Well if I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to worry about.”

This week’s ‘My Internet Mea Culpa’ article was an interesting read for me. I hadn’t really ever thought about the older generations’ expectations for the Internet and how different the Internet has become. Like people predicted and wanted, there is an endless sea of information out there, but the Internet has also turned into a platform for people to spread misinformation, create chaos, and say things they’d never say to someone’s face. That being said, there is still so much that is filtered out and kept from the Internet, whether that be accidentally or on purpose, like when Rick Webb talks about how organizations like Google Books, a project that is supposed to move more information online, have “floundered due to institutional obstruction or a change of priorities in those undertaking them.” There are simply other priorities nowadays.

The Weapons of Math Destruction introduction was a little more relevant for me because it related to what we’re talking about in my Digital Inclusion class. We’ve been talking about how certain groups are disadvantaged when it comes to accessing the Internet and other media outlets that are so important these days. Cathy O’Neil also points out how there are so many problems with algorithms and systems that dictate the lives of people. O’Neil points out how the ‘WMDs’ “tend to punish the poor.” WMDs have such appeal because they “specialize in bulk, and they’re cheap.” She explains that wealthy and privileged people have more stake in recommendations and interviews in person and stuff like that. I really like her quote, “The privileged […] are processed more by people, the masses by machines.”