Friday, March 1, 2013

Geeks A-Lurking



It was not long after I started using Gmail as my primary email service that it was brought to my attention that the text ads on top of my inbox would often reflect at least one of the subject lines to an email.  A good example of that would be an ad for pet supplies showing up after I had received (or sent to) an email to PetCareRx, which could happen at least once a day.  Ah, but that is a rant for another day.

Anyway, I really did not think all that much about the ads reflecting my emails at first.  If anything, I found it somewhat entertaining—especially the ads for a cookbook with Spam recipes showing up at the top of my spam folder.

Oh, but it started troubling me somewhat whenever an ad for some medicine would show up after I had mentioned something about some sort of sickness in an email, which was not indicated in the subject line.  For I look upon that as being like the United States Postal Service reading my mail.

Yes, I understand that an email is not sealed like a letter is, but there should be a line that cannot be crossed.  It sure helps to explain why my Social Security Disability lawyer recoiled like I had said something ridiculous when I asked him if they had an email address to send and receive correspondence about my case a few years back.  Yes, there is an opt-out option regarding displayed ads, but will this prevent them from going through my emails anyway?

Alas, as if it is not bad enough that Google has geeks snooping around in my personal emails, there was a notification at the top of my homepage when I opened my [Google Chrome Browser] a few days ago that said that they had disabled some extensions that may have been installed by mistake in order to speed up page loading.  Whoa now, is this not akin to a landlord going in one of their rental properties and rearranging the furniture to make it easier for the tenant to get from room to room?  I don’t know about you, but I would like to do my own interior decorating—thank you!


Okay, both Gmail and the Chrome browser are free.  That is, at least in regards to them being free to use.  So, there is only so much that can be said, but there appears to be more of a difference than ever between my definition of evil and that of Google’s.  I sure hope they get back to their roots soon.

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