It hit me one afternoon as I walked into our local CVS drugstore to buy mouthwash. While the automatic doors were opening before me, my phone buzzed with a text message.  It was from CVS, with a link to all their current sales and coupons.  As I looked around the store, my epiphany struck.  My devices may be monitoring my movements for health purposes, but information on every store I visit and every purchase I make is somewhere in the cloud, waiting to be exploited.

Marketing technology extends far beyond mere locational surveillance.  Back when I was a youngster going to movie theaters, word leaked out that they were placing brief pictures of hot buttered popcorn and other temptations into the trailers to stimulate a subliminal desire to visit the snack bar.  Fearful of Communist propaganda being broadcast in a similar manner, the Federal Communications Commission and members of Congress summoned market researcher James Vicary to put on a demonstration.  No one was convinced it worked, and Vicary later admitted he had faked his data.  Nevertheless, laws were passed to guard against such practices.

More recently, theaters are much less subtle, showing lengthy commercials for food before the trailers even begin.  Product placements in the films themselves are yet another way that theaters manipulate us.  Going to actual theaters is becoming quaint, but that hasn’t stopped advertisers from messing with our heads. <continue reading>