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September 21, 2011

Google never fails to be creepy (, )

by fluffy at 8:20 AM

So I was doing a Google search and the damn thing started pointing me to the "+You" button like it was the end of the world if I didn't click on it. So I clicked on it, just to make it shut up, and signed up for Google+ again from my one and only GMail account (that I have only for my Android phone and YouTube account at this point). I figured I'd make a token effort at filling out a profile and adding suggestions to my circles, and at least reconnect to the Song Fight friends on there.

It was, of course, taking those suggestions from my email address book, and after all the people in my address book who are already on Google+, it also asked me to add/invite everyone else in it too. And then it kept on making suggestions on the feed sidebar. The top two suggestions were myself (via the name and email address that had gotten banned to begin with), and my grandfather, who as previous readers of this blog know died a bit over a year ago.

There was no way to opt out of this.

Stay classy, Google.

Comments

#14208 09/22/2011 12:20 am
google.com is the only domain I actively blacklist all cookies from. Even session cookies.
#14209 09/22/2011 12:23 am
Another mini-rant comes from the fact that I had been banned from Google+ for using the name "fluffy ." and yet Google is actively promoting famous people who use the same thing; for example, all day today they were spamvertising for a public "hangout" with "will.i.am ." (Google+ username exactly like that, and marked as a verified account). So, okay, I guess their stupid, hurtful, and arbitrary rules only apply to people who aren't already incredibly famous. Thanks for that, Google.
#14210 09/22/2011 12:28 am
I just want the closest thing possible to the "default, neutral Google search" experience. I'll never get it, of course, because Google uses incredibly hostile (and successful) client fingerprinting. But I can at least try.
#14211 09/22/2011 12:29 am
Yeah, honestly I'm pretty close to doing that stuff as well. I hardly ever need to actually be logged in to my gmail account, and when I do I can just launch a secondary browser.

And hey, guess what, Chrome has selective domain cookie blocking now. And for extra irony, it gets automatically synced to all my other Chrome installs via my Google Account sync. I love it.
#14212 09/22/2011 12:32 am
Some way to blacklist JavaScript from executing from google.com and/or google-analytics.com would also be useful, but I am aware of no such thing.
#14213 09/22/2011 12:33 am
Chrome's cookie blocking also blocks local storage Very Happy
#14214 09/22/2011 12:35 am
And here's the thing. I don't even care if the "default, neutral Google experience" includes ads! As long as they're marked as sponsored links, I don't care! It's just that I really don't want to get sucked into a local, filter-bubble minimum.