Sad that you would have to issue a disclaimer and of course its still going on and has for a long time.
Its just become far easier in the internet/cell phone era. We wait in line to pay money for the newest surveillance tool to hit the market every time. Data is big business and its pretty likely that our government is in on the sale of our info.
It is sad, but I'm tired of everything, every comment turning into some sort of conflict which ignores the seminal issue, so I'm trying to deflect that in advance for the sake of the thread and the discussion.
You are right that the more convenience, from being able to turn on the lights from across town to seeing who is on your doorstep or wandering around the neighborhood, or the 'rewards club' at the supermarket promising extra savings (if we can just track your every purchase), or social media, or whatever, if it is out there, it can be accessed by someone, and if it can be tied back to you (The rewards club purchase was made with credit/debit card?--gotcha!), someone somewhere will find a way to use it.
The ads that pop up on webpage margins are no accident and reflect browsing histories. Research it and it will be there (although I haven't seen ads for some of the things I have done digging on, except for the 'sponsored links' on my search page that assure me they can get me the best price on Ebola Virus, or whatever). Somewhere, someone will find a way to use it or use it against you. Let the "food nasis" take over, and you are exceeding your bacon allotment for the year and will be charged double. Let the 'carbon taxers' go nuts and driving to visit a sick relative daily could make you an "enemy of humanity".
We are imaginative people, but we need to turn that to the capabilities that are routinely being asserted by our government and elsewhere and extrapolate them to the highest levels of abuse and totalitarianism, no matter how ridiculous those might seem, in order to prevent them from becoming true some day.
Who would have thought, when George Orwell wrote the horror story of totalitarian domination,
1984, that some people would see it as something to strive for? But then, that was the implied warning, but 'it could never happen here'.