what i hate most is (as with the old Lotus databases) once you are onn you can't change your data: the image they have of you is not only selective in the extreme but is also based on the past (at best) and completely mistaken data (at worst). The time thing is realy fascinating. The obvious way to challenge database images of you is to chnage your tastes and purchasing patterns daily: never be a vegetarian for more than 24 hours; never buy the same brand of anything. Not owning a car helps! Another trick is to provide false data. I liked the Critical Art Ensemble (?) action - going into aheavily surveiled shopping mall wearing T-shirsts with big copyright logos and demanding payment for the use of their images on security cameras: it's my data, I'll sell it but I don't have to give it away - and I want a written contract s -----Original Message----- From: Brendan Howell [mailto:mute@netaxs.com] Sent: Fri 9/08/2002 5:53 a.m. To: empyre@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au Cc: Subject: [-empyre-] Privacy gone... It seems to me that some of the problem with this creeping databases or at least the PR problem for big companies is that they use this data to classify people. They eat your public individuality and define it for you instead of the other way around. They reduce you to a demographic niche. But it's only really depressing if you think the way the marketing dept. does... "I am what I buy". I found this somewhat enlightening on the privacy/surveilance debate: http://wso.williams.edu/~dgambrel/catgirl/cgwatch.gif -Brendan _______________________________________________ empyre forum empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au http://www.subtle.net/empyrean/empyre
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