This column is about TANSTAAFL, which is a term from a book by Robert A. Heinlein (one of the best Science Fiction authors that ever lived) called "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". The term means "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch". This concept is the basis of the plot of the book, which is about a Lunar penal colony and it's attempt to free itself from Earth domination.
Do you know that you are probably being spied upon at this very moment? In all likelihood, something on your computer system is watching you very intently, trying to learn something about you and your habits.
Every day many people install "free" programs on their systems which tell more about them to strangers than they would tell their wives, husbands or even ministers during confessional.
I know those "free" ad supported programs seem cheap, but they are actually very, very expensive. Remember that "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", and that holds doubly true for those "free" programs.
Let's take your average freeware, ad-supported download manager. It seems so great, so easy, so ... well, you get the idea. You get to use the program for free, and the only thing you have to do is look at some ads in the corner or across the bottom or whatever.
Well, guess what? Many of these programs are actually watching your every move. What are they trying to do? Build a very accurate picture of you so that they can deliver exactly the correct ads for you to look at. The theory is if you frequently visit, say, web sites about flowers, then showing you flower ads is a good idea.
Some of the things that are recorded include:
What's wrong with this practice? Well, first of all, you almost certainly didn't understand that it was happening. Yes, many of the spyware programs will point out it is "clearly written in the terms and conditions", but those documents are rarely read, more rarely understood and often changed at will.
For example, I know that when I installed Gator I didn't have a clue that it would be watching the sites that I visited constantly. It took me a while to figure out that this annoying thing that kept popping up ads while I was visiting some site was somehow related to Gator. Once I figured out what was going on I became very alarmed - after all, Gator is used to store passwords, so what would prevent the product from sending my passwords over the internet? Now, admittedly this product does not do that - but the point is that easily could do so.
On top of that, do you really want to have ads targeted precisely to your lifestyle, wants and desires? Yeah, I know it sounds great to advertisers (it puts more money in their pockets), but how good is this whole concept for the general public?
To give you an example, suppose you let your kids use your computer. They surf to the toy sites and look around. In the meantime, the spyware programs watch their every key click and realize that your son loves toy soldiers. Suddenly advertisements for every kind of military toy appears on his screen. Is this really something that you as a parent would desire?
Now, to really add insult to injury, do you really want to have some strangers in several faceless corporations to build up massive profiles of what you like, dislike, purchase, own and want? How much do you want the rest of the world to know about you, after all?
So what can you do about it?
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.