That Cute Ring Dog Ad From the Super Bowl? It's a Surveillance Nightmare
NotionRemember That Feel-Good Super Bowl Ad? Yeah, About That...
You know that warm fuzzy feeling you got watching Ring's Super Bowl commercial about reuniting lost dogs with their owners? That feeling is exactly what makes mass surveillance so dangerous.
The ad showed Ring's new "Search Party" feature using facial recognition across their network of doorbell cameras to find missing pets. Adorable dogs, tearful reunions, hearts melting across America. But here's the thing nobody's saying out loud: this is literally the infrastructure for a surveillance state, wrapped in a bow and sold during the biggest advertising event of the year.
The Tech That Finds Dogs Also Finds... Everything Else
Let's be brutally honest about what Ring just normalized. They've built a network of millions of cameras that can now identify and track specific faces (or snouts) across an entire neighborhood, city, or beyond.
Today it's Fluffy. Tomorrow it's your ex. Next week it's law enforcement tracking protesters. Next month it's your neighbor monitoring who visits your house. The technology doesn't care about intent—it only cares about capability.
Here's how the slippery slope works:
Cute Use Case (Dogs)
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Public Acceptance
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Widespread Adoption
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Feature Creep ("Find my kid")
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Third-Party Access
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Mass Surveillance Infrastructure
Why This Should Terrify You
Ring already has a controversial history of partnering with law enforcement. They've created a private surveillance network that dwarfs most government systems, then made it feel warm and friendly.
The genius—and danger—is in the framing. Nobody wants to be the person who's against finding lost dogs. It's like being against puppies or sunshine. But that emotional manipulation is precisely how we sleepwalk into dystopia.
Think about it: Ring didn't debut this technology in a press release about crime prevention or law enforcement partnerships. They chose lost pets. They chose the Super Bowl. They chose maximum emotional impact with minimum critical thinking.
The Questions Nobody's Asking
Who has access to this facial recognition data? How long is it stored? Can Ring employees see it? What about hackers? What happens when this database inevitably gets breached?
And here's the kicker: you don't even need to own a Ring camera to be tracked by this network. If your neighbor has one, you're in the system. No consent required. No opt-out available.
This is fundamentally different from other surveillance tech. Your phone's location? You chose to carry it. Security cameras in stores? You can choose not to shop there. But Ring cameras? They're watching your own front door from your neighbor's porch.
Meanwhile, in Other Dystopian News...
While we're on the subject of power and control, Michigan just filed an antitrust lawsuit accusing oil companies of actively hobbling EV and renewable energy development. Because apparently one surveillance state wasn't enough—we also get corporate cartels determining our energy future.
And in slightly more optimistic news, crypto is allegedly having its "year of integration" according to Silicon Valley Bank. Bank-led stablecoins and tokenized T-bills are moving from pilot projects to actual financial infrastructure. Whether that's progress or just Wall Street wearing a Web3 costume remains to be seen.
The Bottom Line
Ring's Super Bowl ad wasn't just marketing. It was a Trojan horse for normalizing mass surveillance. And it worked brilliantly.
We're watching in real-time as private companies build surveillance capabilities that would make government agencies jealous, then market them with puppies and patriotism. The infrastructure is being built right now. The precedents are being set. The public consent is being manufactured through emotional manipulation.
The question isn't whether this technology will be abused. The question is: when it inevitably is, will we even remember that we invited it onto our porches?
So here's my question for you: at what point do we stop trading privacy for convenience? Or have we already passed that exit without noticing?