Big Brother is Watching You... What's New?
They See You When You're Sleeping, The Know When You're Awake...
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This weekend, I received an email from Zumba’s Legal Department reminding me that my license to teach Zumba classes has expired. Seeing as my license to teach Zumba expired several years ago, I wasn’t sure what prompted this reminder.
Ever since moving to Puerto Rico, I’ve been looking for ways to stay in shape. There aren’t any gyms near me but the beach and a local yoga studio give me several options for staying fit. Still, my preferred form of exercise is dancing, so I signed up for a dance class at my local community center. In the class, I learned the basics of a dance called “Bomba,” a traditional Puerto Rican dance that involves improvisation between dancer and drummer. I found Bomba to be very beautiful but I missed the intense cardio workout of my dance classes back home.
So I reached out to the program coordinator for the community center and offered to teach a cardio dance class. I wanted to make sure that I keep in shape during my pregnancy and teaching this class once a week would give me the accountability I needed to get some exercise. She thought it was a great idea. I told her I had taken the Zumba teacher certification a few years back but that she couldn’t call it a Zumba class since I wasn’t licensed any longer.
After receiving this email from Zumba’s legal counsel, I reached out to the coordinator, and as it turns out, she had promoted the class on the community center’s Facebook page as a “Zumba class,” without my knowledge.
“But I didn’t put your name in the post,” she said. As for me, I hadn’t even seen the post. It was all very strange.
I completely agree that Zumba is a registered trademark and that licensing laws exist to make sure that others aren’t benefiting from their intellectual property. But what concerns me more than anything is—how did they find me?
I never made posters advertising my dance class (or calling it a Zumba class) and I’ve only taught two sessions; I had two participants in the first class and one energetic older lady in the second class. I’m not charging for the class or collecting any money whatsoever. It’s literally me and a Spotify playlist hanging out with some local ladies in a parking lot.
The coordinator never added my name to the post where she called the class a “Zumba class” and this isn’t a widely publicized event. My name is essentially not attached to this dance class. So, how did Zumba make the connection from that post on a public Facebook group (I’m assuming their original tip-off came from there) to me?
This is just another example about how our personal information is basically available for the highest bidder, and it’s mainly used to enforce the rules of capitalism. Zumba’s main concern is that I renew my license, and so they’re using a scare tactic to encourage me to cough up the cash. And their tactic has been partly successful. I won’t renew my license, but they have managed to incite some fear in me. I can assume that they’ll probably read this newsletter post—and then what? Can I go on teaching cardio dance classes at my local community center without fear of legal retribution from this corporate behemoth? Am I allowed to dance to a song that has the word “Zumba” in the lyrics? Or am I going to end up on this list??
Their email made me wonder what other information they might have access to—private WhatsApp messages, Spotify playlists, my Youtube viewing history. How do they know where I live? Honestly, the whole situation has made me feel a bit like Big Brother is watching my every move—and Big Brother is… Zumba®?
Tip of the Week
Like a friend of mine recently did, take email off your smartphone and give yourself one less reason to be fixated to your device.
If removing email is too big of a step, make the decision to not send any emails from your phone. I try to maintain this rule for myself. Reading emails is one thing, but I want to make sure that I'm giving my responses the best of my attention, so I'd rather wait until I'm at a desktop to draft an email response.
Digital Life Around the Web
Read this piece or listen to this podcast about the newest unregulated facial recognition software being used by law enforcement, Clearview AI.
Don't just blame your smartphone; laptops are the original work-life balance disrupter.
Screen time could delay language skills in developing brains: “Not so much ‘screens are bad,’ but ‘screens are not such a good idea right now.’ Akin to driving a car not bad, but driving at age 3-5 not such a good idea.” Tablets in particular, he wrote, may be “so powerful and encompassing, that they may not belong in the hands of infants-toddlers-preschoolers.”
You might be super smart, but it might still be hard to recognize fake news stories.
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