Who Shot my Pickle?

Beware! Big Brother is Watching you

How would you feel if you realize BIG Brother can intrude into your home and even predict what you are about to do next? Surprised, rattled, unnerved – whatever it may be, definitely you would be cautious the next time you do anything digital and that too in cyberspace. 

With the onset of May a trip to the mandi for the delectable mangoes is inevitable for any die hard South Indian family, particularly if you want to tank up on your avakaaya (mango pickle) stocks for the rest of the year. It is indeed a ritual and an occasion for the entire family to participate (please note the emphasis).  

And Sunday last was just the day to indulge in this delightful activity and invest some sweat equity which I realized was a small price to pay to keep the better half happy through the day. And in addition you could actually stake your claim to the pickle through the rest of the year till stocks last. 

However, a bigger realization, and the reason for this post, which dawned on me yesterday, was that there is nothing in this day and age of mobile phones and the Internet that is not being watched by Big Brother. Let me elaborate.  

Mid way through the exercise, I got inspired by the rich colors of the red chilli powder, aavalu (powdered mustard) and the combination of other spices and decided to capture the process on my mobile phone for posterity, hoping the not so interested but tech-savvy son, would appreciate the efforts. So clearly it was a private family event that was being recorded with only by-invite viewing rights. And thanks to high-end mobile phones video graphing such historical and moving occasions is a breeze now-a-days. 

All went off fine without any mishaps or frayed tempers and in a few hours we had a couple of varieties of pickles bottled and waiting to be consumed in a couple of days. 

But the real surprise, or should I say the shocker, came an hour later. I received a push notification on my mobile saying “Your Video is Ready”.

Puzzled and curious I clicked on the notification and lo and behold it was a crisp video all with background score though not so smart editing. But that is not the issue.  Though I may not have done a better job, the question was, I had not put up anything on the net nor had I asked any tool or App to do the needful. But all same, here was a 30 second video of a personal incident coming back to you as a professional package. That is when it dawned on me. THERE IS NOTHING PRIVATE WHEN YOU ARE USING GADGETS. BIG BROTHER IS ALWAYS WATCHING YOU! 

While we know that Google had all kinds of data points on you and knew quite a lot of what you do online, this the whole family felt,  took the cake or should we say the pickle.  Even when you did not intend, the Google algorithms have taken it upon themselves to do the task for you. Talk of feeling redundant. I am not a stranger to algorithms which I feel will make life easier, but this is an example of how they will not only replace you but also intrude into your life. 

So the big question – what does Google know about you? Depending on what tools you are using on your computer and smart phone Google knows: 

1. Who you are 

2. If you have provided the information it knows what you do, or if you have not, then almost certainly it knows what you do based on your browsing and email history 

3. What you have searched for on the Internet 

4. Which videos you have been watching on YouTube 

5.Which places you have visited or have been visiting 

6.What pictures you have clicked where you went  

7.How long you have visited which sites on the Internet 

8.Your online purchase history 

9.Who your contacts are 

10.What your job preferences are 

11.What your appointments are if you use the Google calendar 

12.How many kinds of devices you have used in the past and are using currently 

Clearly this is just a layman’s listing of all that Google can know about ‘subjects’ in the Google ecosystem. 

Very clearly Google knows a lot about people, more than they themselves may remember about themselves. Giving the benefit of doubt to Google, it may not intend any misuse of this information. But the pickle experience, coming on top of last week’s Google Doc phishing news, has had an unnerving effect. How safe are we?