1429 Forced Testimonial

Technology is going out of control. We’re not long from the future world predicted in Terminator, where machines only get under control by taking control of themselves, and us.
A friend recently told me he had been using his smartphone to take pictures. Later he was showing the pictures to some folks and noticed these little icons on them. He pressed an icon and was quickly rewarded by a description of the time the picture was taken.
But he was disturbed to discover something else—the description also told him the place where the picture was taken. He didn’t remember ever enabling any kind of GPS picture ID function but there you are.
It was, as he said, probably in the terms of use, or the voluminous instructions that came with his device or app, but who the heck has time to read those in today’s busy society? We’re much to busy spending time trying to figure out the next piece of time-saving technology in order to start using it to save time.
Nice to know your smartphone is tracking you every minute though isn’t it? Lord knows we all need a big brother looking over our shoulder to identify our pictures.
Speaking of which, Big Brother Facebook is looking over your shoulder at your comments—and selling them. They have the software to sort the gajillions of posts looking for brand names. If the post mentions something positive about someplace, like say Starbucks, they’ll sell it, along with your name, to Starbucks, who can then use it in their advertising as a testimonial.
And not pay you a cent. You can’t even opt out. Look in the terms of use agreement.
There is one thing you can do. Quit Facebook. Take control.
Become your own terminator.
America, ya gotta love it.