From the dawn of humanity people have been seeking for the answer. Over the ages the technology was getting better and these days you don't have to sacrifice maidens to source of wise counsel in order to get an answer. Although Oracle is still present and prosperous*, these days we have Google to answer the bothering questions. A mighty corporation whose primarily business is search engine; it has arisen by efforts of the top level engineers and programmers and doesn't require sacrifices from mortals. Or does it?
Google is an American corporation that specializes in Internet search, cloud computing and advertisement, with heavy emphasis on the last item. Actually one might even consider Google as an advertisement company, developing other businesses in order to sell their ads with greater success, since "ninety-nine percent of Google's revenue is derived from its advertising programs"(Wiki).
So was George Orwell right with his prediction of a Big Brother constantly watching you? Definitely yes, since corporations like Google are beasts feeding on your privacy. It's their very aim of existence - to know as much as possible about you in order to know what you like and then sell it to you. Just the facts that Google is so eager to get their hand on Facebook user database(link), that your emails, 'Google docs' and any other data in the "cloud", are carefully analysed indicates that you are being monitored all the time.
Does that mean that privacy is essentially "dead"? According to Wikipedia privacy " is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively". Which in my opinion is exactly opposite of what internet-based corporations are doing - constantly mining data about their users both corporate and personal.
What can you do in order not to get "analyzed"? Strictly speaking noone is forcing you to use these technologies in the first place. By cutting yourself from the source of wisdom you might lose a successful career/life. Another option is hiding all of your personal data and using fake accounts, names etc. Unfortunately this way has it's drawbacks as well, since eventually you will be told "it's time to grow up" by an instructor or colleague. Clearly there is no simple answer to this and in the end it comes to ethics and legislation to restrict corporation activities and it means this is your responsibility - to raise awareness of this issue and be socially active.
Generally, it seems that we are indeed living in the 20th century anti-utopian writer worst nightmare, where we have to sacrifice a bit of our privacy every time we are using IT services. In spite of the fact that there are ways to avoid the leak of privacy, it is not reasonable to expect everyone to realize the situation in all seriousness. Therefore the longer we stay ignorant the stronger corporations grow and less control over situation we will have in the future.
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* For young people and Canadians:
Oracle in Greek methodology is a medium between gods and humans, which required sacrifices. Oracle in modern world is is an American multinational computer technology corporation.
