Seriously, does Google not understand that this is creepy?

[jducoeur]

I just got an email of "Your March in Review" from Google. This lists things like:

• All the cities I visited this month
• How much I walked this month
• How much time I was in a car this month
• What restaurants I've been to this month

Mind you, almost none of this information was shared explicitly with them -- it's mainly stuff they've scraped off my phone's GPS.

The chirpy tone of the email strongly suggests that they think this is wonderful, a service that I should be grateful for. But my reaction is that it's a tad skin-crawling -- a reminder of the panopticon that Google is trying to build. (The fact that I'm in the middle of reading a novel that explores just how dystopian such a panopticon could be isn't helping.)

Big Brother isn't necessarily the government. Sometimes, it's a marketing department.