Before I begin, I feel I must share that I am not one of those people who complains about everything. I don't feel like the world is against me. If anything, I am a stereotypical Pollyanna – cheerful and optimistic in nearly every situation, the last 18 months of unemployment notwithstanding.
(This is a guest blog by my friend Angie Sillonis of Boston, whose feelings are shared by a large number of the Google users that I talk to each day.)
So when I say Google is trying to ruin my life, you can be sure my concerns go deeper than, say, a broken nail. Three key points to this story:
- My laptop, which I use for everything, is old. When it was purchased eight (nine?) years ago, it was the main computer for two high school girls and me. For the past six years or so, it has been used primarily by me.
- When traveling with family, I often allow others to access their email on my computer.
- I do not have Gmail, or any other Google account.
We all know Google's invasive. I'd have loved to be in the (imaginary) meeting where an executive, fresh off reading George Orwell's 1984, giddily announced to the others that this was EXACTLY the sort of control Google needed. Did anyone have concerns for the privacy of their users?
If they did, they probably work elsewhere now. So, not too many months ago, I received an emailed invitation from my husband to join Google's new social networking site, Google Plus. I accessed the site from my Hotmail account and signed up. I created a profile, searched for contacts (sparse) and invited folks I knew to connect with me. Laughed a lot, because Google's "intuitive" features couldn't have been farther from my likes, desires, etc.
And then, I saw it. Google Plus was greeting me by name. My recently deceased mother's name. My mother had used my laptop to check her Gmail on several occasions over the years, and since I don't have Gmail, Google, in its infinite "Big Brother" wisdom, determined that, despite my logging in with a different email, and different name, I was mistaken, and was actually the person whose Gmail had most recently been accessed on my laptop.
Despite my numerous attempts to fix, repair, change what Google knew to be true, it continued to believe I was my mother. I made sure that when people looked at my profile on Google Plus, it showed only me (because how morbid would the alternative have been?), and I continued on my merry way – agitated when I logged in and it called me my mother's name, but continuing to check Google Plus on occasion, and utilizing G-Chat to talk to my husband and daughter when they were working, and I was home, looking for work.
Today, fed-up, I attempted one last time to change "my" information in Google Plus, and after failing again, I logged into my mother's Gmail account and deleted it. Naturally, this means my Google Plus page was deleted, because Google thinks we're the same person, and unless I create a Google account of my own, I have no access to G-chat.
But seriously, after all the trouble I've had with Google in the past few months, plus their history of collecting user information, I have no interest in having my privacy invaded. Besides, my father and brother have both used this computer to check their Gmail accounts, so who's to say the next time I try, Google's huge brain trust won't decide I'm one of them?
Besides, I already have four personal email accounts, and will be getting one for work any day now. I don't want another! But wait, there's more. A couple weeks ago, my smartphone decided it had some apps that needed updating.
Typically, I ignore those announcements, because I've had little success in attempting updates previously, but my phone had been giving me trouble, so my husband took over and installed the updates. The phone happens to run on the Android (Google) system, and ever since the updates, my phone thinks I'm my deceased mother. It tells me I have updates, but now, I must log in to her Gmail account to access them.
That was enough of a pain, and now that I've deactivated her account, it's impossible. It'll be sad if I can't update the NASCAR app that came with the phone, I never use, and Android won't let me uninstall, but I'll just have to do my best to survive.
So, Google, I'm out. Unless and until Google Plus has a lot more people sign up, more interesting features, less telling me what I like and more asking me for that information, I don't need it. Apologies to my nine (count 'em, nine) G+ contacts. I'm sure you'll miss my quarterly updates as much as I miss yours.
For my next phone, I'm returning to BlackBerry. If my family won't talk to me on MSN or Yahoo messengers, we'll just have to email or text. Google Chrome? Just. No. As for signing up for Gmail or a Google account, excuse me while I get down on the floor, so I can begin rolling around and laughing.
Angie Sillonis is a writer, editor, photographer and jill-of-all-trades who enjoys baking, coaching small children, sewing, decorating cakes and has recently discovered the joy of refinishing furniture. A native of rural eastern Oregon, she and her husband recently relocated to the Boston area.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
No comments:
Post a Comment