The Obama Administration and the Cry for Mobile and Digital Privacy

This post would be an excellent follow-up to my social media post about facebook and other networking sites. It seems that the Obama administration is seeking to crack down on the invasion of citizens' consumer privacy, proposing a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, that would provide restrictions on the availability of your personal information, as well as a code of conduct for what may be done with that information. If I'm completely honest, I am torn on this issueeiiII KNOW. WAIT. wait wait. Hear me out.

While I agree that the idea of your ISP and your Phone company tracking your locations via your smartphone without your permission is, at the very least, strange. And the information handed over to marketers and advertisers about your habits and lifestyle gives them the upper hand at manipulating you into buying their products and services.

But.

In my experience, most of the people who complain about their privacy rights being infringed upon are the people who make their "privacy" as public as they possibly can. Say you have a smart phone, you know, one of those tiny pocket computers the kids have now so they can play the Grumpy Pigeons game while they're on the toilet. If you use it for social networking, they track your tweets and status updates by location, and if you happen to use foursquare...forget about it. While you're staging a coup, trying to finally oust that smug jerk in the cubicle across from yours as Mayor of the 12th floor Mens' room, you're willingly handing out your location at every second to LITERALLY ANYONE with an internet connection who wanted to bother finding it. You have no legal expectation of privacy, so it cannot be invaded. It's like going around taping copies of your social security card to payphones in a subway station and then trying to say that somebody stole your identity. They didn't. You taped your identity up in a public place and left it alone, any reasonable person would expect it to have immediately disappeared, used to open a credit card in your name, and charges for a Ferrari to show up on your accounts within the next 36 hours, but it seems that reason goes out the window when the information translates from tangible to digital. People seem to assume that just because they are using their own digital device, that there is some cloak of anonymity to protect them from being the target of a Ruby Tuesday's ad, while they use their iPhone to post a low-contrast vintage photo of their Ruby Tuesday's Burger to instagram, and tweet it to their coworkers, tag the restaurant location, and all of the people at the table. ON THE INTERNET. These are the people who seem to believe that just because they are using the internet on their phone, that the information they enter will never really leave their hand.

I also feel that I must say, as a future marketing and advertising professional, I relish the thought of being able to conveniently screen peoples' habits to more easily sell them stuff they want. This sounds underhanded and sneaky, but really, it's been going on for years. Do you have store discount or rewards cards? You know, CVS extra care, Kmart Rewards, etc. These cards save you money, and they're free! Why, that's just the most altruistic...wha...what's that? You say they're not only a ploy to get you to become a loyal customer to that establishment, but also to subsequently provide data on your purchases, so the store and advertisers will have an easily quantifiable record of your buying habits so that they can crank up the prices or offer you store-specific coupons for the products you can't seem to live without? Ah. There it is. I know many people who complained endlessly when Verizon began making their customers' smart phone locations available to marketers looking to analyze commutes, routines, and all that, saying that their contract was breached and they couldn't wait to switch to AT&T. Not surprisingly, though, these same people were the ones who had a keyring that looked like a cheerleader's Pom-Pom it was so loaded up with a gas, grocery, pharmacy, bookstore, and even retail department store rewards cards for every establishment within ten miles of every place they had ever been, all hiding exactly TWO keys. These are the people who call to mind the recent story about the teenage girl who shopped regularly at Target, and just by noticing a small change, a sudden preference for unscented lotion over ones with fragrance in her usually consistent buying habits, Target realized that she was pregnant and somewhere in her second trimester where the sense of smell becomes heightened. So, knowing this, they began mailing coupons for diapers and cribs to her. At her parents house. Who had no idea she was pregnant. Outing the young expectant mother, who had no idea her purchases were being tracked and analyzed.

I may be biased in my experience, and limited in interaction with people who find digital and mobile privacy to be of dire importance. However, the way I see it, you are NOT paranoid. Your information IS everywhere. Everyone IS using it to manipulate you. But, it's also making life more convenient for you. Folks may find it creepy when the exact same rice-cooker they were just scoping out on Overstock.com pops up in an Amazon ad on the sidebar of their facebook page, in the color they wanted that Overstock didn't have, for $12 less. I see that and say "That's amazing, I gave amazon my personal information when I bought that 18-box pallet of Count Chocula, and now they're using it to try and sell me that rice cooker THAT I WAS TOTALLY GOING TO BUY ANYWAY. JACKPOT." Sure it's a little frightening to think of major corporations recording your every digital move and using that information for profit. But you know what scares me more? The thought of these major corporations having to hand over all that information to the Government. At least I know why Amazon.com wants to know where I tend to be from noon to 3:30pm every day. I don't care to think what the Government might want with singular access to that information, but it's probably not to try and convince me to buy the top three items on my wishlist.

Ezine Post! These are a bit out of order it seems!

Alright, well, right now it looks terrible. I know this. However, this is the basic layout idea. Romancing the Stove will be an E-Zine about cooking and baking, featuring mostly cakes, cupcakes, and pastries, recipes, baking and cooking blogs, forums, news, and other exciting features. I want it to have a sort of romantic, vintage look. I want lots of texture, muted colors and floral patterns. The page displayed here is the "Recipe" page that would come up as a long list if the "recipe" button is clicked, or if the Cameo Symbol is clicked, it would bring up the "Recipe of the Month". It includes a photo, description, title, and the actual recipe of course. Many pages would be laid out in much the same way.

Like I said before, this is hard to look at. It's very busy, the colors are too intense, and it isn't how I want it yet, but it gives the general idea of what design features might go into different pages. Think of this as a sort of "swatch" page for the rest of the site, and try not to strain your eyes.

Interesting sidenote: My blog posts are being posted WAY out of order from which they were assigned. But they will all be here eventually! Hopefully that isn't too frustrating, but apologies to my professor and classmates who have to read them.