Lately I’ve noticed an unprecedent blitz of TV ads promoting telephone games–that is, games which can be played on your smart phone. I don’t own a wireless phone, so I’m not quite sure what these games are, but the commercials are being aired on prime time and plugged by A-list celebrities. Supposedly, the games are free and have no embedded commercials, so where’s the payoff? This is a slick and expensive advertising campaign, it looks like big bucks are behind it.

Is this just the first salvo of a multipronged marketing campaign, or is it some sinister ploy to harvest consumer data for the algorithms? Are they prepping us for online gambling? Is this the first manifestation of some massive commercial consumer monitoring scheme?

Or maybe…they are constructing (in a semi covert-fashion) the foundational infrastructure of what eventually will be a software utility designed to monitor and control the masses by infiltrating their communications devices.

Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.