Google

Google is Big Brother. I have a gmail account, and awhile ago I noticed that Google scanned my mail, targeted specific words, and then on the side of the text window proceeded to give me links to things that pertained to something in the email. For instance, if I wrote something like, "she had Princess Leia hair," suddenly there would be links to Star Wars websites, Star Wars merchandising, and Star Wars movies. It was a little creepy. Today, my sister and I were emailing about Disneyland park prices. Now, in a little blue bar above my email account, there is a sponsored link to Disney deals.

A long time ago, I read (or perhaps watched on 60 Minutes or some like show) that this kind of individualized marketing was going to happen. That the keepers of the internet would be able to specify its search engine to refine advertising strategy so that it knows exactly what you want and how to get it to you. Ultimately, it would be able to read your mind based on previous purchases. This freaked me out. I don't want to be consumer #456,687 who shops at the GAP, Trader Joe's, and Target, likes the color blue, and makes one big ticket electronics purchase a year, so maybe I'd like this new eco-friendly Blackberry in ice storm blue for the low, low price of $99.99. It felt like an invasion of privacy and -- worse! -- it felt like I was definable as a human being by my purchases. In the intervening years, however, this fear has been unrealized. Afterall, I often check out my "iTunes Recommends for you!" And let's just say that I like John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen just not as much as Apple thinks I do. Amazon is even worse. They're constantly saying, "perhaps you'll also like..." and I recoil in horror. These botched attempts have soothed me. But then along comes Google.

I like Google. There's something cool about it, and since it's what my generation has birthed to the world we can get that "Gen-X is nothing but a bunch of lazy slackers" label off our backs. (Thanks, Larry and Sergey!) It's a user-friendly informational tool that not only comes up with exactly what I want to know 99.9% of the time, its a terrific way to waste an afternoon at work by Googling all your friends' names. Because, yeah, Google is a verb now, identifiable by Merriam-Websters. Google is fun and makes me look all kinds of smart. Google is also reading my email.

OK, so it's definitely my fault. If I don't want Google to read my email, I should just go back to my AOL account full time and shut it. But, umm, I don't wanna. You see, it's almost like a personal relationship. AOL feels more like my high school boyfriend. Reliable, the It Guy at the time, but I've so out-grown him. While Google is like that cute gent at the pub that understands my needs and treats me like I'm valuable, but then tells all his friends that I sleep in Hello Kitty flannels and pop my zits. In the end, it's a trust issue in addition to my level of comfort with personal information being out on the web. And while there is a part of me that wants to howl in outraged indignation over an "invasion of my privacy", I blog just about every intimate detail anyway, so... really, who am I kidding? It just sorta weirds me out that someone out there might not only be privy to my personal life, but taking notes on it in an effort to depersonalize me and force me into a quantifiable category with marketable value. Not that Google is doing this. Right now, I think it's all computer programming, and as far as I know these links aren't gathering data on me to be sold to Coke or Wal-Mart, rather it's a crap shoot of information. However, I will say that if I wake up late one morning and my computer starts telling me that I might want to stop by the Starbucks to help get me through the day, I'm totally going back to AOL.