Google profits
Of course your data is sold on. Web tracking is as old as the hills. Cookies, magic cookies, flash, Facebook, Twatter, etc. Mobile phones are just making it easier with that added GPS. Face Recognition in Facebook - as developed by the idiots who keep taging the photos of their mates.

We are well on the way to the adverts like you see in Minority Report which will address you personally. See the stories from this Thanksgiving over in the US where certain Malls were all ready to track mobiles from store to store...

Big Brother is brought to you by advertisers, not the Government.

(Turning on web cams, mics, kinects is still illegal so not done... yet)


Also, remember, in reality there is no point in trying to track EVERYONE and bug EVERYONE and record phone, email, web, etc. How on earth would they sort through all that data? You'd need a lot of staff to do the checking. And then who watches them?
( Batter Pudding Hurler is a figment of your imagination, Tue 6 Dec 2011, 22:10, 2 replies)

You'd need a lot of staff to do the checking. And then who watches them?
I dunno, the Coast Guard?
( Holly Would long wheel based tranny, Tue 6 Dec 2011, 23:28, closed)

plenty of point to track everyone
E.g. Bloke robs shop. Cops query phone database to see who is in the area at the time. Ooh, great, a list of suspects. No idea if this happens, just mean you don't have to try very hard to think of a use for such tech.

As to who watches the watchers? An enteral problem. The traditional solution being the police watches the police and if they do anything nawty they flush the evidence down the bog.
( rob, Wed 7 Dec 2011, 9:25, closed)

Yeah but..
Britain is the most watched country with all its CCTV, yet that hasn't reduced the crime rate one bit.
(shezam slouching towards nirvana., Wed 7 Dec 2011, 9:34, closed)

That's because 99% of the cameras are only there to reduce insurance premiums
And so are switched off a lot of the time, suddenly get switched on when the insurance assessor pops round for a visit at renewals time, and even then the feed goes to an E-180 VHS casette so old it's still got the Aardman-designed, Derek-Guyler-voiced plasticine skeleton on the cardboard sleeve, that constantly gets re-used so is only ever of use in solving crimes if those crimes took place and are detected within three hours of an insurance renewal assessment visit.

Big Brother may well be watching you, but he's got the memory of a goldfish.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Wed 7 Dec 2011, 14:00, closed)