I discovered a few disturbing things after surfing around the Google site. First, Google was tracking my visits because it had switched on its new Web History feature without my permission. If it does switch this on by default—and I certainly don’t recall ever giving my consent for it—then I recommend you access your Google account, go to ‘My Account’, then ‘Web History’, and delete everything from within there. When you do, Google will (allegedly) pause its service. Or, better yet, go and edit the services that Google provides: you can delete the entire Web History service from your account forever.
   I also found that I was signed up to Orkut. I just don’t remember signing up. I deleted my account there as well. I probably won’t ever sign up there again.
   Finally, someone had me signed on to some Mac group under Google Groups. Apparently, you have to opt out of people (with a check box) being able to add you willy-nilly to their groups. You bet I checked that box after I saw that.
   I don’t know what the Californian company is up to: cooperating with Red Chinese authorities in 2006, and now having default preferences that go against our commonly held ideas about privacy. I do not want Web History (which should be named Web Spy), so why switch it on for me? I do not want to be signed up to miscellaneous groups, so why allow that to happen?
   I suppose all that is left is taking this blog off New Blogger, which I had said to readers I would do. Let’s see if I have free time in December. I may still change my mind because there are things I like about the basic Blogger editing. But I’ll be happy to take one more service off Google. That will leave a Google News keyword tracker, which is the only thing I actually signed up to Google for. I was on Blogger and the newsgroups long before Google came a-buyin’.
   What a change in my attitude. I used to be a huge Google fan. Now it’s just another American corporation. Pity that Yahoo! is not that much better, which, strangely enough, leaves Microsoft and heaps of independents trying to break through and beat Google as the next big dot-com to capture our collective imagination.
   At least Bill Gates is in to CSR these days, and that gives the Microsoft brand a real halo—that’s also the opposite of what I might have written a long time ago.

Tags: Google, Big Brother, privacy, corporate culture, CSR, social responsibility, brand, branding, Microsoft, Bill Gates, image Posted by Jack Yan, 11:21  permalink

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