The Dark Side of Technology

I think a great number of tech entrepreneurs feel the same way, that they want to do more than just make money, they want to be a force for good in the world.  However, noble intentions only go so far

and technology has far reaching consequences.
The philosopher Martin Heidegger quite rightly pointed out that technology is a process of uncovering.  Nobody owns it.  Once it is released it is here to stay and as much as we are excited about the possibilities, we also have to be conscious of what we are unleashing.

The Power of a Click
I love the Web.  I think what I like most is that it gives you instant access to just about anything in the world.  Whenever you get into one of those silly arguments and you come upon a basic disagreement about facts, it can usually be resolved with a quick Google GOOGLE -0.49% search.  We have more information at our fingertips than even a large institution had a decade ago.
Yet even as we watch the world, the world is watching us.  Go to just about any Web page or click on just about any link and you set off a chain reaction that travels at light speed through the ecosystem that Luma Partners has outlined in this chart (click to enlarge):

Much of the chart is what you’d expect.  You have marketers and their ad agencies on the left, publishers and their sales agents on the right.  However, buried in the middle, you can see the data aggregators and suppliers.  They track your online behavior and collate it into a unified profile, which follows you around the web, advising marketers about what you might be likely to purchase.
It’s just a short hop from there to your location data that can be collected from your smartphone, which in turn can be modeled by use of a Levy flight model to predict your location at any time with a high degree of accuracy, even if your phone is off.
These predictions can be confirmed by the picture on your Facebook profile, which can be used with to find you anywhere on the planet with the help of the millions of cameras on our streets and facial recognition software.
I should note here that marketers, as a whole, do try to be responsible with your data.  In practice, they don’t connect your online identity with your actual one.  However, the ability is there and the genie is very much out of the bottle.  Your full identity is only one cookie away.