Google to User: I Spy

Today, before I signed in to write this entry, I was taken to a page where the new Google privacy policy was on display. I was assured that life would be easier with the new ease of transference between YouTube, Google searches and Gmail. These changes will take place March 1, Google explained, and there will be no way to opt out of them.

I had already noticed the ads Google tailored to my blog posts. They're often funny. I might be reminiscing about our trip to Vienna two years ago and up will pop a Danube River Cruise. Doesn't Google know that we're still paying off our 2010 trip? (That it doesn't is good news, actually; apparently Google does not yet have access to our bank records.)

Surely, though, it's only a matter of time. Google has already been collecting information from my searches and YouTube viewing and from the blog posts I write here. And in little more than a month — in the name of creating a "seamless" environment — Google will be able to share all the bits of information it has collected to serve (and plumb) our deepest selves.

It's enough to drag me back to the 20th century — or maybe the 19th.