The time to stalk is now. Long gone are the times when you had to rummage through a person’s trash to gain a little insight.

By David Mantey, Editor, PD&D

"Peeping is no longer relevant. Why stand in the snow and freeze while you fog up a window when you can click through 325 photos from the warm of your own arm chair?"

With most new technologies and applications hitting the market, it seems as though people are more willing to share personal information about themselves regardless of how scandalous the info, photos, videos may be. Just watch the local news; you’re sure to find a mixed signal between a teacher and a student, or a profile on a teenager’s MySpace page that leads into an entire ‘corrupt generation’ feature.

The information that’s now available makes me feel like a stalker at times. Granted, the users are putting the info on Facebook as a window into their lives, but it can be quite personal, answers to questions I wouldn’t even ask after a couple martinis.

People are sharing about their sex lives, marriages and run-ins with the law – with a prideful caption of “5-0 in my business.” Guys are posting incriminating party pics with their underage girlfriends. Women are compelled to post photos that could only come from sorority initiation infamy – and they’re 37.

Too often, I click on an old friend’s profile to ‘catch up’ and along with learning what they’re doing, where they’re living, and whom they may or may not be in a custody battle with, I also find the person’s top “25 random things, facts, habits or goals” that is more focused on the habitual than the goal oriented, as well as itemized interests that span from favorite movies to sexual cavalcades.

The time to stalk is now. Long gone are the times when you had to rummage through a person’s trash to gain a little insight. Peeping is no longer relevant. Why stand in the snow and freeze while you fog up a window when you can click through 325 photos from the warm of your own armchair? While I don’t exactly practice what I’m preaching, too often I’m online and I think to myself, “Wow, it must be a great time to be a creep in this world.”

This uninhibited, top-down, windows open, reality television-infected generational movement is the reason I barely sighed when I heard news out of Milwaukee that was clearly inspired by Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report.  

According to the report, if you are watching an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store, there's a chance the ad is watching you too. This is when we would typically become irate before reading any further, but our current thirst to share all makes me think that individuals may actually seek out these screens.

Small cameras are now being embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer's gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity — and can change the ads accordingly.

Invasion of privacy or ad campaigns helping us expedite our search to find what we are looking for? Commercials will soon have the ability to stalk. As in the Minority Report, how far are we from having retinal scans that link to our purchasing habits in order to queue up the latest Gap fashions or bestseller to hit the rack? Can innovation ever go too far? Has it, in some cases, already happened?   

What's your take? Send comments to david.mantey@advantagemedia.com.