Ah, Super Bowl Sunday.  It’s a fight between Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos, healthy competition between commercials worth $4 million apiece vying for our attention, a time for divided families uniting to scream at the television screen, and a battle between privacy advocates and the NFL itself.

Wait- what was that last part?

For the few of us lucky enough to afford the $4000+ price tag on some Super Bowl tickets and enter MetLife Stadium, brand new technology is being tested on anyone with a smart phone.  The NFL mobile app, with the help of transmitters scattered within the venue and through Midtown Manhattan (for those of us in New York who can’t afford to go to the Super Bowl or watch it), will deliver personalized messages, ads, and updates based upon (disturbingly precise) location and patterns.

The technology is months old, but Major League Baseball, American Eagle, Macy’s, and Apple have jumped aboard. Meanwhile iBeacons, developed by Apple, does not even require an app running to display alerts and track. Sounds like that old stalker boyfriend/girlfriend creeping through your Facebook photos and judging you, even though adjusting the settings could do wonders against that.

While advocates of the technology (mostly companies wanting hyper-local catering to consumers) may call it starting a “one-on-one dialogue,” critics point out what it could lead to: ease in companies buying and selling your data and privacy becoming non-existent for anyone with a smartphone.

Many of us remember the revelations of Edward Snowden- the NSA is watching, decrypting our emails, skimming through our data, and the like. There’s a fair chance the data here, due to the (justified) safety concerns with the Super Bowl, will end up in their hands.  The government has demonstrated that its de facto limits here are minimal. Constitutionally speaking, the right to privacy seems void.

With companies invested in the collection of data about you, a consumer individual, it’s rather concerning.  And dehumanizing. It only brings companies closer to what keeps them in business. They never met you, just the pages you’ve visited and the places you’ve been.  Some say they find it convenient, though, getting help in the area and helping with navigation (God knows I’m directionally challenged).

People don’t always like being watched though, and uninstalling an app, changing loyalties, or moving back to an old phone may show companies just how their customers feel.  Misreading what consumers want has sunk many a business’s profits.

With this in mind though, enjoy your Super Bowl.