1/12/15 Collusion

           Today, I watched a TED video tilted, Gary Kovac: Tracking Our Online Trackers. He was introducing the online, downloadable, tracker Collusion. Guiding us through his day and his daughters, he demonstrated how Collusion works and how we are being tracked today through the websites we go through. Kovac was concerned of how much he was being tracked without his consent. He openly admitted that certain sites have permission to track him to recommend movies, books and friends to connect with virtually. But the majority of websites tracking him are unknown or do not have his permission to track him. 

           Personally I think the trackers watch our every virtual move to find out what to advertise to us. For example if you type in "Good ways to lose weight", your trackers would start to put ads on your regularly visited websites, about weight lose. Which who says is a bad thing? Some good things can come from being tracked. It could possibly open you up to new experiences and virtual worlds, on the other hand they use your information to find these things, which is a violation to your privacy. Kovac, showed us his daughters Collusion and he could not stress enough how he was enraged by his daughter getting tracked. So, they not only effect you but those close to you.

           I can honestly say that the amount of dots that appeared on Kovac's Collusion was not surprising. Everyone knows that you're putting your information at risk while going online. Things like your identity can be taken from you or your address. It's a window of opportunity but also a way for people to get into your life. This isn't to say, that I justify being tracked. I would say that I would have over 200 trackers because I spend more than 8 hours of my day online. Things like watching videos on YouTube, reading articles about protest or even just normal social media such as Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.We get tracked on a daily basis online, now we just have to decide whether to allow it or not.