Evil monkey from the movie about the evil monkey that smiles awkwardly
Dear Google,
You’re over-reaching. A year ago, I would have defended your name against accusations of evil-ness. 1 Today, is a different story.
Google, you’re in my work computer, my laptop, and my phone. You already know my every move – and yet you’re always asking for more. You have my credit card, you see my work e-mails, personal e-mails, cell phone calls, where I live, my wifi router, IP address, and even the IP address and physical location of anywhere I log in with a Google service. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure you know my race, gender, exact birthday, social security number, name of my immediate family, and have a complete list of friends. 2
You’re like a needy creepy co-worker who just shows up at parties. Parties where everyone made a lot of effort to not invite you to. For a variety of reasons I live a double3 online life, the likes of which Don Draper would appreciate. This online life does not intersect with the other online life and that online life tangentially intersects my real life.
Four years ago I signed up for a Google account – which still has e-mails in it. Then Youtube insisted I log in with a Google account, so on a whim I used this four-year-old account. And Google asked for my birthday. 4 On yet another whim5 I used the birthday of a website of mine – since that’s the reason I was logging into Youtube. Since that website is only four years old, Google shut down that account as swift as can be. If I want to unsuspend the account I’ll have to (a) give Google a credit card they can charge and use to verify my birthday (b) send, e-mail, fax, or mail a copy of some government ID with my birthday on it.
No, Google. I will not do this. Burn the account. Destroy it and all the e-mails. Google, you certainly have a way of reminding me that the things I use are not mine – they’re yours. Let’s say I decide to change our relationship? What does that mean?
Both of my jobs use Google to support their mail. So, that’s out. Otherwise, I’ve got four Google e-mail accounts. Could I do without them? Yeah, I really could. What about Google analytics? I like it, but I don’t live and die by them. Most of my sites are WordPress now, so I could just use WordPress’s JetPack/stats plugin instead. Adsense? I make so little off of Adsense I could give a crap. Google+? Don’t make me laugh. Google, for the moment you’re my default search engine, but you’ve made that creepy too. There’s no reason I couldn’t switch to something else.
After twelve years, I’m finally had enough. I think I’m ready to start cutting the cord. I should nuke all of these worthless Google accounts. What the hell do I need this kind of grief for?
Sincerely,
MakerBlock
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