January 4th, 2004
The end of the world will not come from governmental encroachment. Oh, sure, that’s gonna put a serious crimp in things, but the real enemy of the people is data warehousing.
Put simply, data warehousing is the practice of gathering as much information about you as possible by stores, and by services, and by credit card companies and other financial institutions. Here’s the deal with that: You buy three pounds of kitty litter, four books on French impressionist painting, and a bottle of wine ... and now the Marketeers with enough reports and queries to sink a battle ship know you. They can target you, or (more likely), your "numbers" will form a part of a larger query to determine what kinds of people are more likely to buy their particular brand of beer or car or trinket or other crap. The point is, you have no right to the privacy about what you buy.
Most people don’t care, by the way. It’s more than likely that I am again shouting into the vacuum here. But it should never be forgotten how easily the rights and privileges of the German peoples in the 1930s were taken away right from under their noses by the policies of the Nazi party. The erosion was steady and persistent, and nobody seemed to care until it was too late to do anything but obey their mad leaders.
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So, I went to some store the other day. I don’t want to mention the name, since these large companies, so paranoid that a single person expressing an opinion could topple their billion-dollar empires, are overly-litigious. So I will just call them Sheets ‘N Stuff. The girl at the cash register said, "Let’s start with your postal code." WHAT?!?!? Since when does a store like that need to know my postal code?!?!? I was so flabbergasted at this that I pretended I didn’t hear her and gave myself some time to think as she repeated the question. Well, I finally told her that I wasn’t comfortable giving out that information (but politely, since it wasn’t her decision to ask for it). She pressed a button on her cash register and we were able to proceed.
Hmph. Who are the morally autistic Marketeer weasels who thought up THAT one???
I can hear the plaintive cries from the sub-gifted minds (that probably enjoy wearing suits to work): "But XYZ company does it! Everybody does it!" Always a stupid argument, since some people murder other people; that doesn’t make it right, does it? So my answer to the Marketeers is, "So what? It’s invasive and none of your bloody business."