Google is an outfit that specializes in stealing data. They probably recovered the URLs from Chrome browsers, or browsing histories, http referrer… Google is everywhere, unavoidable and aggressively collects data on everyone about everything all the time.

I find it fascinating that in today’s world, private companies are allowed to decide how long they want to keep the entire populace under surveillance, just like that, without any laws or any judge involved, without the entire thing instantly turning into a giant scandal or people rioting in the street over it.

As a gen-Xer who has known a world where privacy actually meant something people deeply cared about, the world we live in today is frighteningly dystopian.

private panopticon

That’s the only thing George Orwell got wrong: he envisioned surveillance conducted by the state - i.e. a communist dictatorship, but what we end up with today is surveillance conducted by late-stage capitalist monopolies in cahoots with the state - i.e. a fascist dictatorship.

Either way, it’s a dictatorship.

Gee, I feel so much better now…

This infographic is inaccurate: the airport employee should be pictured struggling to pull the cart, not casually walking.

Also, it’s orange, not red.