October 5, 2010

Kya jamana aa gaya hai

(What has this world come to)

Honestly. So I bought a new GPS (my old GPS does not have advance lane guidance which makes it useless in this big city). I was very happy with this new GPS when suddenly something caught my eye on its FIVE-inch screen (its huge for a GPS).

“Eat Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster”

I stared at it for 5 secs (I was driving, couldn’t have stared longer than that). I thought it was a fluke or malware or whatever. Next time, same thing happened. MY GPS WAS SHOWING ADVERTISMENTS IN REAL TIME!! Granted it didn’t know that I hate sea-food so there is a fat chance of me trying out eating endless shrimp but I watched the Red Lobster pass me by, nevertheless. Something I wouldn’t have noticed, had my GPS wasn’t so particular to point it out. And who knows, may be with time it will learn my preferences and advertize accordingly. Isn’t that’s what Google and Facebook etc are doing?

I mean what’s next? Picking up random words from my conversation on cell phone and then advertizing about them on it? They already advertize based on your search pattern and site visited. This is getting way beyond invasion of privacy.

What do you think?

P.S.: Other than this annoying feature I love my new GPS. It actually gives me the speed limit of the road I am travelling on. True that most of time they don’t match the speed limit posted on the road but at least they have always shown a lower speed limit than posted one. At least I will not get a ticket for speeding.

3 comments:

  1. This is almost similar to what I just wrote today. I really think that Google and FB know so much about us that it is scary. And all this information can be used by the advertising agencies/ companies to sell us stuff based on our preferences. I find it really really scary!

    Maybe that day is not far when random words from conversations are picked up to advertise stuff. In india, there are ads played when you call a cell phone- before the phone rings on the other side!
    I hate all the 'personalizaion' stuff- the excuse is that it makes life easier for us! Saves time energy effort! At what cost? total and complete invasion of privacy.
    its like 1984.

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  2. I completely agree. Its so crazy that Google shows ads which are based on the email content which you're reading. I don't like that one bit. Why should someone know what emails I get!

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  3. arre Richa, why aren't you replying to comments?
    kaisi hai and how's new town?

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