Executives at Hewlett-Packard aren’t the only people playing “Spy vs. Spy”. According to a recent LA Times article, in our current high-tech, wired and Google world, I spy, you spy, we all spy on people; but we only get mad when someone else spies on us.<\/p>\n
From the article —<\/p>\n
Women Google prospective dates. Neighbors check what the house next door sold for on Zillow.com. People use online satellite imagery to sneak a peek into the backyards of the rich and famous. Hidden nanny cams record baby sitters. More than 75% of employers monitor what their workers do on the job \u2014 and more than a third record every computer keystroke.<\/p>\n
“You really have, in a good and bad sense, a democratization of surveillance technology,” said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit technology advocacy group.<\/p>\n
For $155, for instance, nervous new parents can buy a wireless camera small enough to hide in a smoke detector to keep tabs on the nanny. It even has night vision. For $60, DisneyMobile sells a kid’s cellular phone with satellite tracking technology developed for the military.<\/p>\n
Beth Givens of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego knows one man who is such a privacy “zealot” that he considers any piece of junk mail a violation of personal space.<\/p>\n
But he volunteered that he would willingly do a background check if he felt something was amiss about his daughter’s boyfriend. Indeed, he even went dumpster diving to investigate the dealings of a corporation he had invested in.<\/p>\n
“People are conflicted, but they are in all aspects of life,” Givens said. “They have one set of standards for themselves and another for others, including large corporations.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n