M’s the Word: Prepare for the unexpected

How randomness, rather than technological targeting, makes life interesting

By Malcolm Allison on May 13, 2011

I write when the feeling takes me.

Often at night, after I have finished my work, and usually after I have told myself it is time for bed.

Tonight is one of those occasions.

I was about to disconnect, then thought I would check my private email accounts in case someone had written.

No luck, so I have obviously offended someone. And then I checked the spam account, and I just had to write.

It looks like I have been invited to complete a form in order to ‘Win FREE LASER EYE SURGERY'.

Now, that sounds like my sort of competition. Forget the new Lamborghini and the sea cruise-what I REALLY want to win is Laser eye surgery.

If you have read anything I have written, you will know there is something of a conspiracy theorist lurking behind these steel-rimmed bottle-end spectacles.

Are they watching me? Do they go through my litter at night while I am sleeping? Or is it the work of one of those Web crawler devices that has sniffed out my short sightedness?

To my certain knowledge, I have never disclosed my dim secret to anyone.

I am not on Facebook, I do not blog or tweet, and I have never ordered any large typeface books from Amazon.

So either it is random blasting, genuine spam, or the year of the thought police really is upon us.

I have read about profiling, which I associate with grooming, I am afraid.

I know how many gigabytes of information I generate through the scanner at Manor and the credit card swipe at Mobel Pfister.

I just did not think there was anyone desperate enough to actually join the dots in order to influence my purchasing.

Surely, all this fantastic computing power and amazing association could be put to better use than tempting me away from my favorite soap powder.

Surely there are some terrorists or bank robbers out there who deserve this sort of attention rather than me.

Perhaps I am becoming a Luddite, and perhaps the battle for my euro has become so desperate.

Perhaps it has just become so cheap to do this, and even automated, that it is worthwhile.

Perhaps you are all fully aware of this, you know the enormous amount of information that is held in Tesco, and you are a willing partner to the suggestions they make, personally, as you surf.

I am just wondering how far the selection is going.

Is it possible, for instance, that the electronic media you use are also selecting the type of material that it thinks is suitable for you?

Are we already heading for an age when the news is tailored to the audience?

I doubt if the BBC is doing this, but I would not make the same assumption for Fox.

I think it is the random that changes us and excites, and I think it is the ability to respond to the unexpected, rather than the ever tightening targeting, that makes life interesting.

Now I have to sign off. I can see clearly now, I have to fill in the entry form.