By Charles Miller
It was not something I did intentionally, but it seems I created an alternate identity for myself. I call him Charlie. He came into existence last year during the almost three months I spent in Houston,Texas while my brother was hospitalized. I was not even aware that Charlie existed until recently.
While in Houston I fell into the habit of paying for everything with a credit card; a practice that was encouraged by the growing number of places that no longer accept payments in cash. I also got a new cell phone with a local Houston number, and of course the phone had a GPS tracker that recorded my every movement. This led to a great deal of personal information about Charlie and his habits being collected, data mined, and quickly sold to advertisers.
Those advertisers now think they have a reasonably accurate picture of who Charlie is. He commutes from Woodlands to downtown Houston by bus Monday through Friday, then drives on weekends. His favorite meal is Texas barbeque, favorite adult beverage is a glass of red wine, and the vending machines that take credit cards tell which snacks and soft drinks he bought. The grocery stores report he regularly buys fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, but not ingredients for cooking at home. Other stores report what size socks and underwear he wears. It might not be known where he takes his laundry and dry cleaning because when Charlie drove his brother’s car to the drive-through at the cleaners their cameras automatically identified the vehicle and charged everything to Charlie’s brother’s credit card.
I think you get the picture. Tons of data about Charlie was being collected and I did not pay attention to the extent to which it was happening. That is not until after I was back in Mexico, and one day I was using the same laptop computer I had used while in Houston. Because I was using a public Wi-Fi I turned on my Virtual Private Network (VPN) for security. Using the VPN made it appear that I was in Houston again though I was really in Mexico.
Just like everyone else I am accustomed to seeing online ads when I surf the internet. Most of them are generic and rarely relevant to my interests. This day I noticed a difference in the ads and it was subtle but unmistakable. I turned off the ad-blocking software in my browser so I could see more ads. Then it was almost as if I could hear someone inside my laptop yelling out, “CHARLIE’S BACK!” What I observed over the next hour was a torrent of online ads all of which were directed at Charlie, not me. Several were from stores where Charlie had shopped while in Houston, while others were accurately targeted at his interests. Later when I turned off the VPN, returned my location to Mexico, and erased all the tracking cookies from my browser the ads I received returned to being the generic untargeted ones, to which I am more accustomed.
Clearly advertisers are expending a lot of resources to vacuum up and organize as much personal information as they can . . . about everyone. It was interesting to observe how advertisers see the elusive and ephemeral Charlie.
Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant, a frequent visitor to San Miguel since 1981 and now practically a full-time resident. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8@SMAguru.com.
