That is a fair point, for sure. But I don't think it's the whole story.

What about this: Noticing and remembering people's faces, clothes, tics, etc. when they walk up to you. Also you have blanketed the planet in cameras that all feed back to a giant database that builds a detailed dossier on almost everyone, based on faces, clothes, tics, etc.

The way you put it sounds almost accidental, like no effort was made, with no real goal in mind. That's not a faithful analogy of the pervasiveness of Google Analytics, Facebook buttons, etc.

Stalking is toward another person, that person is specific and it's voluntarily towards that person.

> Noticing and remembering people's faces, clothes, tics, etc. when they walk up to you and interact is not stalking.

It is when you place yourself in a position to be nearly every one of the hundreds of people that person interacts with in a day.

Quantity has a quality all of its own. You can't property reason about tracking and surveillance through analogies to conventional social interaction.

Noticing in itself isn't but we're talking about amassing surveillance intel on people, bundling into packages and selling to the highest bidder. Or selling to hackers on black market. Normally you'd need a private detective licence and a good reason for each tracked person.

human memory isn't comparable to digital memory. When we recall a person's face we've interacted with we don't beam that information telepathically to others and we (most of us) gradually forget the face over time.