[nxcho]

1. Pretend it is the 1970s in East Berlin and someone follows you around, noting down every interaction you have with other humans and every bit of media you consume and collects this information in a file somewhere for future use. This is the horrifying and oppressive surveillance machine of a paranoid dictatorship.

2. Use a computer to the the exact thing automatically today. This is just the natural state of the world, nothing to do anything about it, move along.

[Mediterraneo10]

There is a clear difference between 1970s East Berlin and now. Stasi spying propped up a system that provided a relatively low standard of living and a limited availability of consumer goods. Modern tracking of customers fuels a vibrant customer-good market that is a win-win for everyone.

[nxcho]

I don't think it is ok for any entity to make notes of when you buy condoms and then spend the night at an adress you don't live on and infer whatever it infers from that and then sell this information to any other entity to do whatever it pleases with marketing or otherwise. Even if I make more money than the X% who still have a worse material standard today than the median East Berliner.

[jankiehodgpodge]

Except this technology is being used in China today to monitor the bulk of every purchase, every internet site visited and every message sent and received.

The Stasi hid cameras in handbags and behind buttons but regimes operating today do not need to operate in such corse ways.