Ahhhhh!!!

My problem is this: I do not want to put my last name on my Google profile because I don’t want it showing up associated with my blog. Or anywhere else, for that matter, unless *I* choose to make my full name “public”. (For the sake of my own privacy I’d like to at least make a stalker WORK to figure out who I am!) But if you have a G+ account you are required to use your full name, and you have no option to show any other name but your full name across any service where your profile is displayed. (Actually, it looks like from a recent news article (linked below) that you may be able to display a nickname – BUT IT WILL STILL LINK TO YOUR REAL NAME.)

…In fact, with the recent well publicized Google privacy policy change, they can now link information across any of their services – so if you use your real name on Google+ it’s now going to be linked to everything that you do on any of their services (searches, posts, pictures, etc.)!

I always figured the Google+ service was just another social network service, akin to Facebook. I had no idea it is actually an “identity service.” Some people don’t seem to have a problem with that, but a lot of us do. I like my privacy and while I don’t mind sharing my real name or social events with some of you very dear readers, I DO Mind sharing them with Google, who keeps a dossier of everything about us and everything we do online. (According to the Forbes article, the government is too afraid to do it but they have no qualms about private businesses doing it).

All very scary.

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Techcrunch says Google uses sponsored posts to pump Google ratings in Asia.

Google is undoubtedly the dominant search engine globally, but in a few countries such as Korea (Naver), Russia (Yandex) or Japan, local competitors are winning. Especially Japan, the country with the world’s third biggest Internet population (about 100 million people are online), still seems to be a tough nut to crack for Google.

…the Japanese blogosphere today is filled with reports about Google hiring Cyberbuzz, a Tokyo-based Internet marketing company to promote the keyword feature (its widget version) with a pay-per-post campaign.

… All postings end with a disclosure that says: “I am taking part in the Cyberbuzz campaign”.

It’s interesting to see that Google, a company that not too long ago radically took action against PayPerPost bloggers in the US, today thinks the concept is suitable as long as it helps them advance in Japan (even though in Japan, pay-per-post isn’t regarded nearly as obnoxious as in the US)….

“Interesting” is an understatement. Perhaps… hypocritical? Two-faced? Slimy? EEEEEEVIL?????

And then, Google penalized the blogs for having sponsored posts!!!!! JERKS! Read more at C|net Asia.

I thought it was perfect timing especially after reading that Google is starting a new program within Gmail to “help” us.

Google has adapted its free email service to help those letting loose after a few evening cocktails or succumbing to lovelorn moments from firing off messages they might regret in the morning.

Mail Goggles software comes to life after dark and on weekends, when altered states of mind are more probable, and requires that five simple math problems be answered correctly in less than a minute in order to send a Gmail missive.

“Sometimes I send messages I shouldn’t send,” Gmail engineer Jon Perlow wrote Monday in a website posting announcing the optional new feature.

“Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together.”

Gmail users can adjust their email settings to activate the Goggles feature and dictate the times it is active.

“It will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email,” Perlow wrote.

“And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?”

They really, really think we are a bunch of slathering, blathering idiots, don’t they?

Yeah, you can guess what happened. They killed my Page Rank on another blog. I was actually surprised to even get PR last time around, because it seems they have been targeting me, for some reason. I blog for pay on some blogs that I have, but not all the blogs that I have! And they make sure I never get PR. So that means decreased income for me.

I write nice blogs and they are read by hundreds of thousands of people every year. So advertisers ask me to review their stuff and put up their links. I’ve pledged to be honest and forthcoming in my reviews and opinions, but Lord Google doesn’t seem to care about honesty and intergrity. All they care about is their bottom dollar and their competing AdSense.

Google, I am a disabled mother. I am unable to work outside the home. I advertise on my blogs to earn a living and feed my children. Is that OK with you, Google? Can’t I still do this?

Google, your crappy PR system that you have elevated is arbitrary and deceptive. And when you strike me down, even though I have backlinks and good posts, I earn less money.

Google, my children need bread and milk. Google, may I please be allowed to get them some? I mean, IF it’s OK with you, of course. Because it seems I can’t do anything without your permission and acceptance. You’ve said you lower PR on monetized blogs to “protect” Mr. and Mrs. Joe Schmo from finding “bad” and “deceptive” websites when they, for example, do a search for their medical problems. Yes, you PROTECT these people from “bad” websites. That is so lame, Google.

Google, I hope you are happy in your billion-dollar complexes, with your massage parlors, and fun rooms, and fancy teak think rooms. Because my refrigerator is getting empty, Lord Google. And you are making it emptier and emptier.

Thanks for nothing.

“By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services.”

This is what C|Net News writer Ina Freid, had to say about that:

Although you retain any copyrights to content you own and use in the browser, Google says it has a right to display some of your content, in conjunction with promoting its services.

That’s really over the top. So if you write in your blog, upload your Photoshop scrapbook images, or upload movies, you are essentially giving Google the free rein to use, reproduce, ADAPT, MODIFY, and DISTRIBUTE your creations to promote “the services”? For free??

I use Flickr free account, and I know that they can redistribute my photos that I upload, to a certain degree. But I am still in control of that somewhat– I can choose what not to upload, and what size to upload, and etc. And Flickr has that nice little “Creative Commons” license thing going. Google here is basically saying that ANYTHING you do in their browser gives them the right to modify it and use it, for free, for forever. And another thing: how do they know what you’re doing in the browser?

I checked it out. Eh. I looked up New York Traveler– I come in #7 for that phrase on Google (after Wikipedia and the Big Wigs), but on Cuil what do I get?

Look closer– Number One is “Aviation Consumer Protection Home Page”?!?!?! And the NYS Thruway Authority? And the New York Times’ “Frugal Traveler”?!?! That guy is never in New York!

So :-p. Cuil has some improvement. Lots of it. But at least they aren’t powerful enough to kill off my income. Yet.

Well, today in my comments, Andy notified me of a new development:

Google wins agreement to anonymise YouTube logs

Google claims it had now agreed to provide plaintiffs’ attorneys with a version of a massive viewership database that blanks out YouTube usernames and IP addresses that could be used to identify individual video watchers.

“We have reached agreement with Viacom and the class action group [led by the English Football Assocation],” Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes claims. “They have agreed to let us anonymise YouTube user data.”

Hurray! Another score for the little guy! Thanks for letting me know, Andy.

You might be thinking “Big deal; so they remove some videos and $1 billion is a spit in the bucket to Google.” Oh did anyone mention that Viacom also wants the login names, IP addresses, and “viewing habits” of every person who watched those videos at YouTube?

Why’d they want this? Deb Shinder of Vista News says:

As part of that lawsuit, Viacom asked for the log-in names and IP addresses of YouTube users and records of who watched what videos. And last week, U.S. District Court judge Louis Stanton granted that request, ordering YouTube to turn over their database logs to Viacom. Despite many protests from organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the judge dismissed concerns about user privacy.

If Viacom wins this one, it could open up a much bigger can of worms. A new interpretation of the DMCA safe harbor provision could affect more than just video hosting sites. Web sites that host discussion forums might be held liable for what users post there; this would probably cause many of the online forums to simply disappear.

…There has been no indication at this time that Viacom or anyone else intends to go after the users who watched copyrighted video clips, but who knows?

At the court proceeding, Google gave some lame excuse about privacy concerns, not citing anything with legal teeth to attack the issue. After all, Google does the same thing with our IP numbers and surfing habits! So Google meekly handed over all that information– 12 terabytes of data about everyone who has been watching those videos. No reason given why the U.S. Court and Viacom wants it all.

So they want to watch you watch them. How do you feel about that?