Sunday, November 9, 2008
CONSUMER PANOPTICON
Consumer Panopticon is a system of data collection that results in better-targeted advertising. With consumer panopticon the gathering of data is more efficient. The companies may know and target the consumer on what they are interested in, based on the information of the consumer. In conjunction, the consumer can easily get and find what they want as they are being promoted by the companies through mail or email. In directly, consumer will not receive any junk mail and email which is not related with their interest. In other word, consumer and companies get their own benefit on this consumer panopticon. I do not see this consumer panopticon has interept into our privacy as long as it does not harm and give bad effects to us. Consumer panopticon collect our data and information about the items we bought, the date, price and so forth. All of this information is stored through the discount card at local grocery. With all of the information about the consumer, the companies can cut the cost and times of promoting the junk mail or email to those who are not interested in certain products or goods. However, consumer panopticon seems like to manipulate us. Companies use the power of television advertising to control our desire. Television motive is as obvious as it attracts and grabs our attention on their products and goods based on our information. All of this happens on a cycle; from the observer, fits into a system, then pattern-option and reinforce and the cycle begins again.
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2 comments:
The consumer panopticon is the beginning of a system that has the ability to control consumer behavior to an extent beyond what we currently perceive. The panopticon has not interfered with our privacy because it has not reflected any harm. However, the harms preceding this system of advertisement are not reflected in the physical sense but rather the democratic sense. Our right to privacy should include the choices we make. For example, the people have the right to privacy when it comes to voting. It is a political choice of who we believe should and shouldn’t occupy that position. The right of privatizing our political choice should be continued in our consumer choices. Steps towards learning our behaviors is an infingment of our right to privacy because knowing our basic choices in what we buy, eat, etc. is opening a door possibilities of other, more harmful, “Big Brother” types of monitoring.
I do agree that with consumer panopticon is effective in what it is intended to do, but do not agree that it does not infringe upon our privacy. Using the consumer panopticon, companies are better able to target ads at consumers based on what they are interested in. This may seem like a great solution for both the consumer and the company, but the collection of all of this data about the consumer will only hurt them in the long run. First of all, they will now receive more spam than ever before, even if it is targeted at things that they are interested in. For example, I listen to a lot of music, and that is something that I am interested in, but do I want an advertisement popping up in my e-mail every 10 minutes that is trying to sell me a certain CD, an I-Pod, or headphones? Of course not! Even though I receive spam now, I believe that that amount would increase even more if companies monitored everything I looked at or bought. I believe that the monitoring of these types of things is a violation of our privacy as Americans. Why should someone be able to monitor things that I buy, the websites that I look at, or even the phone calls that I make or receive? These should all be rights that I have, and are able to perform, without someone scheming about how they can make a profit off of it.
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