How has the advent of technology effected the food industry?

I'm not going to lie, this was probably the most difficult blog post to relate to my topic which is why I am writing this at two o'clock in the morning. However, after lots of deep thought I thought of ways that the food industry is being effected by the lack of security and privacy brought on by technology. The first one that came to mind is that with websites, video/picture sharing, and other resources that restaurants no longer have the privacy that they used to. Reviews of restaurants are now constant, as is the image of the restaurant. Unlike in the past where you would base your opinion off of a newspapers review which could be a year old, now people base whether they go back to a restaurant on the latest Yelp review. Another way to look at it is people now have the capability to share their dining experiences with picture messaging. One party can discreetly take a picture using their cell phone and send it to another party. This photo could drastically alter the second parties opinion of the restaurant. If a chef is not wearing a hat, not wearing gloves, blowing his nose, this is all open to not just the people in the restaurant anymore. 

When restaurants fail health inspections now it is recorded on the internet for everyone to see, rather than just a simple hard to see letter in the window like in past times.  This is similar to the public records that we went over in class. We were able to see any information we wanted to see about someone with the exception of medical records. This is the same for restaurants as we can now see any documentation having to do with a restaurant. Liquor licenses, health inspection grades, the loan documents used to purchase the restaurant, and several other pieces of information are all public now. 

One way to utilize this information is if you are wanting to go to a restaurant but don't know the DL on it. You could find out who the owner is, and then searching public records see his history. Is this is first restaurant? Has he had bad grades at other restaurants? And several other questions. Despite the possibilities of using public records to find out information about a restaurant, it is still far more likely to use a website like Yelp or Yellowpages.com to get information on a restaurant. 

You could also relate this topic to the celebrities that have been created due to the breakthrough of food into the mainstream media due to technology. For instance celebrity chefs such as Rachel Ray now suffer the same harshness from paparazzi that other movie stars or singers have to endure. The secrets of their life are exposed, for instance their religion, where they live, and other facts that one would hope to remain private.