They're looking over your shoulder

I recently finished a project for a law firm. They specialize in defense for accused sex offenders. What they wanted was some copy for a FAQ on their website--a lot of basic information, essentially. I received input from all six attorneys as to what the questions and answers would be. It took me about a week (each Q & A was several thousand words long). They enthusiastically accepted my first draft and I was paid $2,000. End of story, right?

Wrong! For two solid weeks my inbox was bombarded by emails from law firms and individual attorneys, about all of which had the message and tone of "Yo, pervert! They're about to put you away! Better call us right away, scumbag!" The emails were aimed at defendants in cases such as the firm that hired me handled.

Now, I had NOT done any Google searches or any other kind of Internet research; I just modified and polished the texts that the firm had given me. I sent the final product as several Word files, attached to a very brief email that only said "Work completed; see attached."

Now, I'm baffled as to how some spambot could have wormed itself into my email and determined that I might be a good customer for those spamming law firms. The conclusion made by the bot was incorrect; I was not a potential customer. So if a human had read and interpreted my latter email (with the completed files), that human wouldn't have spammed me. It must have been the original exchange, where the firm and I reached an agreement on payment and time frame.

So my question is: are we all being observed much more closely than we thought? And have you ever been bombarded by emails selling a product that you've never had or even indicated an interest in, but when you think back, you can recall ONE instance where you might have casually mentioned it in an email, text, or chat?

(I'm absolutely sure that our MAGAs will make some snide remarks about what the firm I contracted with does, so let me be the first to say, everyone accused of a crime is entitled to legal representation, and if you don't like sex offenders, why did you vote for Trump?)

Well, at least the Federal government isn't allowed to do that.

Are you using a Gmail address?  Google is questionable on data privacy.

Perhaps it's those web cookie trackers that I see Safari blocks 999 of every day.  Google and meta have a lot of those that try follow you around wherever you go on the internet.  

I'll mention something to my wife or look at a product online and within a day I'll see something similar in my Instagram feed as an ad or on my Alexa screen.  Coincidental?  Probably, but maybe not.  

There is a lot of money being made selling your data.  Even car dealerships have been installing gps trackers with cellular connectivity directly plugged into your ODB2 port for over a decade, collecting your driving data and selling it to insurance companies and other 3rd parties not specified.  I watched a few videos on people uninstalling them on YouTube this morning.  I expect I'll be receiving ads for ODB2 adapters and car products soon.

Sounds like a good gig creating copy, do you think that'll get replaced by AI?  

It seems like kevin has yet another job.  Next week he will tell us about his teaching job that he supposedly retired from. This is in addition to being an accountant, tax expert, CPA, economst, pro gambler, dealer and business owner Soon he will tell us he is a nuclear engineer.

Maybe the firms are monitoring all your perverted sexual comments on this site and it has nothing to do with job #34 here above.  

The expected asshole comment from stupid fucking Tom, who lacked the reading ability to discern that I wasn't talking about a job--i wasn't employed by them.

Jerry, when you first crawled onto this site, I thought you were intelligent enough that we could have decent conversations. But you quickly proved to be unable to restrain yourself from being an asshole. You've been attacking me and making gratuitous insults about my work, my life, my opinions, and my politics. And you know what? I've been pretty fucking gentle in return. I've laid off attacking you on your profession, your politics, your personal life, etc.

But no mas! And no more attempts at civil conversation! From now on, you get one response, and one response only: fuck you, Jerry.

Fuck you, Jerry.

Well, since it appears that there's very little human involvement in the "data gathering" process other than the initial programming and spy/bot installations, you could say that the AI phase is already here.

The copy creation thing is indeed a good gig for now, as AI still can't write very well. Ironically, my skill level stands out more and more as the English writing ability of the public continues to drop like a rock. Even the average member of my generation wrote far better than all but the very best of the present generation.

To answer your question, yes, I do primarily use Gmail. The funny thing is, a while ago, I had a Yahoo email address that I used specifically for communications that might have generated spam floods in return, like clicking on the MORE INFO button on a product site. I was amused by the fact that when I chose "rockofjello" as my email tag, Yahoo informed me that it was already taken. I had to keep adding numbers to the name before they would accept it. Yahoo was just fine, until it and my browser developed compatibility problems. I'm finding myself forced more and more to use Google for everything, and it seems like I can't accomplish anything without using my phone. Can't see the menu in the restaurant, can't use the bathroom without opening the Crap App, that sort of thing.

I think you're right that the invasive bots read the actual content of your emails.

I assume you meant that ironically. They not only know what you had for lunch for the last fifty years; they also know how much ketchup you used.

I just wonder what defense there is. The anti-whatever software like Norton et al is pathetically ineffective. Live like a hermit? Snail mail only? Cash for everything? That isn't even possible any more.

Yep, when Kevin was supposedly an accountant, he confused corporate revenue with profitability.  ZERO accountants would do this.