The Dangers of Data Mining

In the era of Web 2.0, integration is key. By merging personal preference and habits with commerce, advertisers know exactly what to offer us. We list our favorite musicians on Facebook and get surprised when Amazon knows exactly what CDs to recommend. The ability to pick out seemingly disparate information and use it to match similar tastes with millions of users is why data mining is such an essential part of online businesses. By putting your likes and dislikes into easily commodifiable About Mes and Interest lists, you wind up making the broad world of what is out there on the internet that much smaller

Google, of course, is obsessed with the practice. In their broad range of services, they put themselves in a position to know the most about you. This, of course, could be a detrimental look into your own personal being. So imagine my surprise when I mess up my Google Mail login and get this random string of letters to verify that I am not a spam bot.

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Oh god. What a weird random turn of events. I don’t pay this much mind, but should have seen this as an ill omen, a portend into what Google thinks of me, matthewadamrowe@ it, because it wasn’t just two days afterward that Gmail’s ads display this ad for me:

This is much worse. Now Google thinks that I’m in the market for not just any fart video, but 10 that changed the world. Its a shame that video has only been around for a hundred years or so, because I hear the one Martin Luther ripped while nailing the 95 Theses in Wittenberg was what really got him excommunicated.

This, of course, got me worried. Am I the kind of person who thinks farts are funny? This would be a blow to my self image of sophisticated humor. Why would Google think this about me? What did I search for or put into its memory banks to get this reception? It wasn’t until a few days later when I figured it out while getting directions on Google Maps, that I found out the map service keeps a cache of everywhere you’ve searched for. One night, I was having a ball looking for place names. I couldn’t be stopped:

Oh awesome. There’s batman. Then I went looking for more:

Of course. Rad is in Somalia. I guess it should be no surprise about this one then:

I should have known better to stop. But I didn’t. I kept going, and now I’m in this predicament.

So there you go. A whim to find where in the world Fart is led me to where I am now. Because I asked the Google Oracle to satiate my curiosity, I’ll now forever be linked to this. So, be careful what you search for. Thanks to data mining, I’ll be known as that kid who thinks farts are funny. Thanks a lot, Internet.