Mind-Manual

Google is My Dear and Glorious Leader

Google, Inc. knows more about me than I do. Even the people I am closest to in my life don’t know as much as Google does. I use Google Search, Google Adsense, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, YouTube and occasionally Google Notebook and Google Bookmarks. What all this means is that Google knows where I live, where I am most of the time (calendar), my SIN card number, my banking information, my real name, my friends, my interests, my hobbies, and how many times I’ve done a vanity search on my real and not-real name. All in all, Google knows a terrifying amount about me and I’m wary of any organization knowing that much about me. In dystopian science fiction, the government is often protrayed as knowing everything about their citizens and we usually go “HOLY CRAP”, but here I’ve given all this information up to an entity who’s sole purpose is to make money and has made some vague claim to not being evil. I want to discuss three possible products that we might see coming up: Google OmniAds, Google BlackMail, and Google PreCrime.

Google OmniAds

Google doesn’t have to try hard to find out what sort of products or services I’m interested in based on what I search for, what ads I click on, what I write about on my blog, what I write emails about, etc. It could also quickly generate a profile of what my “hot buttons” are (I’m highly averse to loss of control, for example) and create ads that are 95% effective. Instead of having ads based on the context of the page, have ads based on the psychographic buying profile of the person doing the web surfing. Enter Google OmniAds. Google knows everything about me and will have 95% influence on my buying decisions. The scary thing is, I might actually like that.

Google BlackMail

There’s a lot of “sensitive” emails I’ve stored in my GMail inbox, as well as “sensitive” google searches. My love for ninja-pirate lovin’ knows no bounds. Any number of those emails–if they got out–could seriously hurt my reputation as a fine upstanding gentleman among my nearest and dearest as well as potential employers. So, what’s a giant corporation geared towards profit to do? Start blackmailing people with their knowledge of your affairs, that person you killed and how much you liked Barbie’s Unicorn Adventure. Google would do it classily, too, no clandestine letters cut out from newspapers and magazines. You’d get your own BlackMail representative who will work with you to work out a good amount of money in exchange for keeping their mouth shut. I’m willing to bet that this could easily become the most lucrative division of Google, Inc.

Google PreCrime

Google exclusively hires very, very smart people. All it needs to do is throw in a few good psychologists, write some programs that comb their data for specific personality markers as well as any emails saying, “tomorrow we bomb the white house” and you’ve got yourself the ability to predict crime. It doesn’t have to be big-time crime, either; theft of stationary from office spaces probably makes up at least a billion dollars of losses a year, and I’m sure someone out there is bragging about stealing that water cooler before they got canned. I wonder how long it’ll be before the government orders Google to start running these search patterns on their data and identifying potential threats. Oh wait…

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I’m a Thief…and MSN Messenger Fast

I’ve been on a break from MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger since Wednesday till next Wednesday. It’s been instructive. So far I’ve been forced to find other ways to entertain myself, and indeed been more productive. Perhaps I will set no-MSN hours when this break ends. You might be interested in seeing how you spend your time using RescueTime.

Also, I accidently stole a book on Friday as I was buying another one. Oddest thing is that I can’t remember putting it in my bag at all. Ironically, I stole a book that would strongly advocate not stealing: Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina. Steve has a past that included being addicted to stealing, so perhaps even more ironic. Obviously, I will be returning it. I may even buy it because this is a book I’ve been wanting to read and doesn’t appear to be in the library system at all. It is also reasonably priced because it is a paperback.

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