Dear Google

[thebrinkoftime]

How are you? Things are good with me too.

 

We've had a lovely relationship. I remember way back in the day where you totally throttled your search engine competitors. Remember Lycos and Infoseek? Ha ha, good times.

 

I remember when you started revolutionizing all sorts of Internet services. It was pretty interesting seeing Google diversify and provide such a high level of quality for their services. 

 

I remember living right next to your main offices and biking past that wonderful building every day, for a short time. It made me grin that even though it may be nothing more than a marketing gimmick to say you were a more human technology company, it's certainly preferable to any other kind of marketing gimmick and I saw evidence that it looked like more than that every day.

 

I liked that you provided a mobile OS that proved a sane alternative to a monopoly from Apple in a situation where most consumers would be squeezed into the unfortunate circumstances of having their phone and their computers controlled by feuding monopoly interests.

 

Bottom line: there's a lot of good things you've done for me and all the rest of your millions of users. And most of them for free! Oh yes, I know you profited off of us and our usage of your products in all sorts of ways, but you have to make your money somehow and I honestly don't have much of a problem in the way you do it. Especially because Firefox + adblock is sweet ambrosia to my electronic philistine lips.

 

It didn't bother me when you started instituting a policy that would read keywords in user's correspondence to generate focused ads. This was mostly because I am not naive. I could have easily forfeited the convenience of free web mail by downloading some undoubtedly exceptional, easy-to-use free e-mail program for use on my computer. But even with the advent of the cloud and huge databases where I can upload and download them from any computer, and even with the future advent of the rain storm or the blizzard (probably not that, the Warcraft people would get upset) or whatever the hell comes next, I enjoy doing that trick where you attach a file to an e-mail addressed to yourself and use it to transfer the same file on other computers and I probably always will.

 

For this and a few other reasons, I prefer free web mail. And if I prefer free web mail, then I am essentially using somebody else's servers to transmit private messages to others. While they all ensure me that they aren't reading or accessing what I send, I have no idea what's really going on and have always made sure I don't do anything I wouldn't want found out over this, because I am not a trusting person in general. So it didn't bother me when that new policy came in and everyone followed your lead; I figured no one could really expect to have any measure of true privacy when they entrust their interactions to an anonymous internet company in the first place. 

 

So it's not that. It's something else. I wanted to let you know about something that's been bothering me lately.

 

It's not new, but it's getting increasingly hard to avoid. I'm speaking of something that I know I can't be the only one to be incensed over.

 

I like browsing Youtube, who doesn't? I don't want to upload videos on Youtube. I don't want to have a channel where I can keep bookmarks on Youtube. I have a brain and a memory and I can remember what I'd like to see on Youtube perfectly well. I don't want a user account on Youtube. I hear people complain that the user interface has gotten worse, but I don't care and even if I did I'm not going to complain: I've gotten hundreds of hours of free entertainment out of Youtube, and have no interest in acting like an entitled dope because the player doesn't always work correctly or because I sometimes have to get used to new things.

 

But I don't want a user account on Youtube because I don't need one and I don't like feeling manipulated into having something I don't need. I don't like it when I download something from Microsoft and there's this pre-install page that urges me to make Bing my default browser. (Screw Bing. That's the last name of a Friend, not a search engine.) I don't like it when somebody tries to sell me something I have no interest in while I buy something else. I always, "No thanks, you can throw it in that trash can right over there." You should see the look on the salespeoples' faces when I do that.

 

I really don't want a Youtube account because I follow Youtube links from all over the nets and sometimes people aren't helpful and don't label what it is they are actually linking to. I don't want my history of Youtube views in an account somewhere. Even if I can "easily delete it" (ha ha ha yeah right, on MY side, I'm sure I can).

 

Travelling over the waves of the Internet these days is perilous. Everything seems to get tracked somehow, even when you're not really doing anything bad. Last year I had the woeful assignment to edit this madman's work that included a detailed description of "motorboating midgets." I knew, knew in my bones, this had nothing to do with frolicking midgets in jet skis. But fortunately by that time Firefox had blessed us with their private browsing windows that don't keep any history, cookies, user records or login info, so the next time my friend uses my computer and types "Miley Cyrus nude pics" into my search bar he'll never find out that I once searched for "motorboating midgets urban dictionary."

 

I like that. I like not having to worry what other people will think about me due to out-of-context information. This is not because I am a people whore. It is because I have become increasingly concerned about how we forge new relationships these days and how fragile perceptions are and how easy it is to ruin new relationships with the slightest of rumor and gossip. I remember losing a nice potential friend in college because he believed this absurd rumor that I watched people masturbate through their windows. What kind of psychopath would do something like that? Nobody even had basis or proof for it. It's not even that though. When I'm with my friends, they don't care if I watch Jenna Marbles. But when I visit my mom's house and she snoops on my computer (I know she does it!), I'm pretty sure she'd object to Jenna Marbles (or even the friggin' Harlem Shake that's probably somewhere in the roots of my Youtube history). Google, don't make me explain Jenna Marbles to my mom.

 

Youtube and the Internet in general are like that though. If you let them, they spread rumors that you like watching people masturbate through their windows, despite the fact that you probably never have done or even thought of doing such a disgusting thing. No matter how much you take care not to, sometimes you get images or links to places that you'd never expect. I don't want a record of that linked to me, however frivolously. I don't want to worry about a record like that. When I see somebody write, "I dunno, this video shows she still looks pretty hot" and "video" is that familiar blue, I'm hoping that when I click on the video it's not something stupid and tacky, but let's be real, this is the nets, the odds are not in my favor.

 

Lately whenever I log into my Google account that I only use for a certain kind of e-mail, it automagically logs me into an equivalent Youtube account. I don't like this. It means I have to watch Youtube videos in one browser window, the private one, and use my e-mail in my normal browser, because I never know what I'm going to run into when I'm linked there or click a related video and I don't like having to constantly monitor my level of suspicion for the people who use my computer so that it doesn't have a convenient user-analyzed list of related videos that say "fart monkeys" when all I did was click on a related video once that said "zoo antics." It's exhausting. Especially because I'm a pretty normal person who just likes to surf the nets for the LOLs. Two months ago a friend of mine had his Youtube account revoked because he was "watching overwhelmingly copyrighted content." This despite the fact that after over 30 minutes of talking and reminiscing neither of this could remember what videos he watched had this awful, soul-destroying "copyrighted content" in them. I just know one day, in the name of convenience, somebody on my g-mail contact list will be able to click on my name and see what Youtube videos I just watched or what things I just searched. Even if that never happens, I really don't like the gut feeling in my stomach that all that information is linked to one account's identity.

 

I killed my Facebook for the same reason. I don't like feeling like my habits are being watched and analyzed and attached to a username that can be linked back to my real identity. Even though I don't do anything heinous, I just don't. Like. It. Period.

 

It's like every last thing you did in college is viewable in a video bar perched on your forehead. Much of the internet is like that obnoxious eternal college sophomore who won't get out of your face. If you spend extended time on its premises, it's nearly impossible to avoid. But the internet has changed a little bit over the last few years. Professional Internet writing used to be how much you could assert your style over the loud drones of the many users of the nets; these days the great majority of it is about how many search engine optimizations you can cram into an article without it looking too suspicious. In short, that sophoromoric college idiot has been trying to sell me Mormon bibles for years now and nothing I can do shuts him up. It's becoming intolerable.

 

Knock it off. I like my gmail account. I like using Google. I like watching videos on Youtube. I do not necessarily like being watched as if there was this annoying nanny to monitor my every move and simultaneously sell secrets to the Nazis. Remember, people liked it when the all-seeing eye of Sauron got owned by the hobbits at the end of The Return of the King. I know there are millions of bozos who can't control their impulses on the internet and seriously need to have their anonymity revoked in the name of policing malicious and ugly behavior, but I'm not one of them and I refuse to be punished for it in an internet environment that is increasingly hostile to maintaining my sanity.

Edited October 22, 2013 by thebrinkoftime

[mickey1952]

I could have sworn I was reading my own rant! I agree with every single point you made, Brink, and definitely couldn't have said it better. Like you, I don't have anything I'm necessarily looking at or doing on the web that's embarrasing or oh-so-private. But I have a big libertarian streak in me. Even though it's pretty tame, it's still no one else's business unless I decide to make it so. Thanks for a cool rant!

[rustle]

I've known all my life that privacy was an illusion, and so far, I've been able to live with that. I've learned to tune out ads, once I know their placement on the page. I've even learned to look for the added browser and default search engine agreement to opt out of. Most of the time. But it's getting tougher, and the clear space on the window has shrunken. I can foresee a tipping point, at which time, my digital life may come to an untimely end, cable will be cut, cell phone silenced.

 

I'm going camping next weekend.

[MikeL]

Great rant, Brink!  I really like it.  I really do.  Alas, the interenet world is such that when I tried to "Like This", I get the message "There was a problem storing your reputation vote."  It seems the internet attaches your name to some things you don't want it to, but sometimes defeats your best efforts to leave your mark.

 

I kicked Facebook out of my life years ago because of its invasive nature.  Now it seems Google has become Facebook on steroids.

 

Edit to add:  There seems to be delayed action at work; I check back three hours later and my Like This" has been recorded.

Edited October 21, 2013 by MikeL

[Daddydavek]

The illusion of privacy is fast fading on-line and everywhere else in our society.  Being tracked, means you are being analyzed and pigeon-holed.  All so that someone can try to make another buck off you.  It is rather depressing.  I don't do facebook, twitter, and the rest of the social media.  GA is one of my few on-line habits.  

[Zombie]

Google bleats "Don't be evil" but  - as my grandma would have said - "actions speak louder than words" and "evil is as evil does"

[Sasha Distan]

way before the commonality of the internet, we we're still having our images recorded some 30 times a day and if you bought a cell phone even 15 years ago you could be triangulated to within 100 metres. We've not been alone in a long time. the trick is to lie, lie well and lie consistently until the internet believes you are someone else.

[MikeL]

 the trick is to lie, lie well and lie consistently until the internet believes you are someone else

 

I believe that would be illegal in some jurisdictions.

[Sasha Distan]

I believe that would be illegal in some jurisdictions.

 

Almost certainly, including in some in which i have to my certain knowledge lied and broken the law. fortunately, because of these same lies, i cannot be found.

[rustle]

way before the commonality of the internet, we we're still having our images recorded some 30 times a day and if you bought a cell phone even 15 years ago you could be triangulated to within 100 metres. We've not been alone in a long time. the trick is to lie, lie well and lie consistently until the internet believes you are someone else.

 

Or to truly be yourself, and the devil take the consequences.

 

I'll miss being connected, almost as much as I miss being free.

[W_L]

Welcome to the world of Philip K. Dick

 

Now all we need is human acting robots with a soul and a mystery plot

[Gene Splicer PHD]

Brink, could you move a little to the left, and turn that down a bit...thanks.

 

Sasha there's some kind of smear on the lens, you're a bit blurry. Also you shouldn't eat so much trail mix at once.

 

<the cabal>

[hh5]

lol, after Twitter goes public ... they will be added to this thread as the next rant.

[Sasha Distan]

like a wolf eats trail mix...

[hh5]

is it scroogle or disgracebook or flitter time?

[jeet01]

I loved google but over the time i realised that google doesnot give you what you want,it gives you what it think you want.It keeps a profile of you.I was missing a lot of the net because of this damn filter bubble.I use privatelee now,sometimes duckduckgo too.The biggest advantage of privatelee is it supports other languages by default.And if you still want to use google without any tracking use startpage.The only drawback is google image search plug in,which is the mopst awesome feature feature of google image search,that i cant found any substitute yet.Anyone knows about any good service? tell me.