Lizbeth Lopez |Staff Writer|
Google is being too invasive with their advertisements and are constantly looking for new ways to collect information from us to tailor the advertisements they send us.
If you haven’t heard already, The New York Times reported that Google is planning to release a pair of Google goggles that “stream images to its rack computers and return augmented reality information to the person wearing them.”
“For instance, a person looking at a landmark could see detailed historical information and comments about it left by friends. If facial recognition software becomes accurate enough, the glasses could remind a wearer of when and how he met the vaguely familiar person standing in front of him at a party,” stated Nick Bilton in The New York Times.
The Federal Trade Commission was asked by the Electronic Privacy Information Center to suspend the use of facial recognition software in the Google goggles until the government could come up with a more adequate safeguards and privacy standards to protect citizens, according to the article.
It is against California law to talk or text on the cell phone while driving because of the dire consequences that have resulted in such practices.
Let’s add the prohibition of wearing the goggles while driving to that law as well, since it is a tragic mess waiting to happen.
Policies are not being drafted fast enough to keep up with the rise of technology innovation and the conflicting privacy issues that come along with them.
It is possible that the politicians and lawmakers need some of our assistance in order for them to better understand how these technologies are problematic. We can actually educate them for a change.
Michael Phillips evaluates the impact of advertising on society and its ethical dilemma in his essay “The Inconclusive Case Against Manipulative Advertising.”
Phillips states that the enormous advertising budget of industries provide hundreds of people with job security within the advertising, marketing and communication sectors.
Advertising agencies are a good driving force that instill the value of consumption and in consequence result in a good economy, according to Phillips.
He also notes that advertising is only there to increase consumers’ dependence on agencies by suppressing one’s ability to make intelligent, self-directed product choices on the basis of one’s own values and interest.
Agencies can argue that we knowingly and rationally want to be manipulated because we half-consciously sacrifice our autonomy by embracing consumerism as a whole.
We are seen as a public that loves to consume and there are agencies out there that are enriching their pockets by associating Vera Wang with the perfect wedding day.
Now, Google is planning on putting eyeglasses out in the market this year that will project information, entertainment and, being a Google product, advertisements onto the lenses.
According to The New York Times, these see-through computer monitor goggles will be more like smartphones powered by Google’s Android software and will be equipped with GPS, motion sensors, a camera and audio input and output.
Even though Google’s engineer experts say that the glasses are not designed to be worn constantly and are meant to be used only when needed, it is still in their best interest that consumers wear these goggles as much as possible.
Google is just a step away from placing a chip in our skin to keep track of our wants and needs, to be the first to manipulate our autonomy so we inherently embrace consumerism for their benefit, not ours.
The scariest part of it all is that they would probably find a way to get you to buy it too.
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