I read that Jeremy Wright, the culture secretary, is looking at “microtargeting” by online advertisers. I have a long list of stuff to worry about in my life, and the world in general. Microtargeting hadn’t made the cut. But it’s on there now, because something most odd has happened to me on the iPhone Maps app.
I was staying at my friend’s flat in a big block in the middle of Birmingham last week. Lying in bed, squinting at the Maps app, looking for something, I chanced upon the name of a company located either in or next to the building I had woken up in: Dating Agency for Attractive People Age 52 Plus. What’s that all about? Why 52? Is 52 a thing, a significant milestone?
The worry for me – in more ways than one – is that I am 52 years old tomorrow. That, as my daughter has just pointed out to me, is extremely old. I tell you, nothing makes me feel old more than the sense that the march of technology is starting to put modern life beyond my ken. In the spirit of unbridled curiosity, I ask, had some algorithm noted my birthday and started inventing companies specific to me, right wherever I happened to have laid my head that night?
As my daughter was, once again, unkind enough to point out, the algorithm can’t be that clever or it would know that I still only meet one of the two criteria – attractive and 52 – marking me out as a prospective client of this agency. I clicked on it anyway and up popped an address and phone number, but I was too scared to ring it. Do give it a try, if you’re more curious than me.
