This article, written by Darren Pauli for The Register, reports on the fact that some very cheap smartwatches send out information to an “unknown” Chinese IP address:

Chinese Backdoor Found In Popular $17 Ebay Sold Smartwatch

When I was younger (get off my lawn!) and professors in English class talked about the frightening scenario presented in George Orwell’s 1984, little did we -or Mr. Orwell!- know just how much technology would create “stealth” means in which people/corporations could glean information on people.

The information transmitted via these Smartwatches to China can’t help but have you wonder what exactly that information is.

But it goes beyond that, doesn’t it?

I’m not embarrassed to say I really like Amazon.com.  To begin, it offers me a great venue to sell my books and I couldn’t be happier for that alone.  Of course, it does a lot more.  It allows me to purchase music and books, movies and all manner of materials which are sometimes hard to come by (the other day, for example, I ordered -of all things- a Tim Horton’s French Vanilla powdered coffee as the one I bought in Canada ran out and I wanted more).

Having said that, I’m all too aware that Amazon has amassed considerable information on me and uses that to try to push other products I may buy my way.  When I go to Amazon’s homepage, there are several listings for things I might be interested in.  Many of them I am indeed interested in and may purchase, but even more eerie is to see listings of things I already own but had not purchased through Amazon (ie, they didn’t know I already had them)…which means Amazon’s algorithms regarding my shopping patterns are eerily on target.

I also love Costco but just know they too have a damn good idea of my shopping patterns as everything I buy I pay while presenting my Costco membership card.  In the flick of a button they can pull up all the things I’ve bought and create a nice profile of not only the things I’m interested in but of the things everyone who shops at my local Costco are interested in.  This information surely allows them to buy certain products with at least a theoretical assurance people in my area will likely buy them.

And that cell phone you carry?  The one that essentially records where you are at every moment of the day?  Don’t tell me that information wouldn’t be interesting to marketers as well!

Don’t forget video game makers and banks and car dealers and…smartwatch makers.

For good or ill, we live in a world where personal information is highly -even aggressively- sought by companies and, quite often, is all too easily gleaned from your own movements and habits.

If he were alive today, what indeed would George Orwell think?