Google is watching

[darkemeralds]

I've just started using gmail as my regular email address.

Call me naive, but I'm dismayed to discover that it reads your email and advertises to you according to what you communicate about. I mentioned Rebecca Fine, Wallace Wattles, and "The Science of Getting Rich" in passing in an email to roseambr and here's what the sidebar looked like when I next looked:



Make $18,000 in One Day?
Act Fast Be The First In Your Area Automated + Residuals + No Selling.
www.YourLegacyMentors.com

What Law of Attraction?
How does it Really work? Learn the truth, avoid pitfalls
TheSecretLawOfAttractionSuccess.com

Free Think and Grow Rich
Audio Book plus Additional Personal Development Bonuses
www.FreeThinkandGrowRichMP3.com

...and so on.

So I sent this to myself at another address:

Subject: Loneliness
Text: I'm so happy to know you've found someone. I wish I could get a date! I'd like to meet a nice man, someone who likes the same kinds of things I do, and settle down. I've heard that online dating can be effective, but you're honestly the only person I know who has had success with it. Let me know what dating service you were using and how it all works.

Here's what my sidebar looks like now:

Signs He Likes You
Don’t Go Here Unless You’re Serious About Understanding Men!
www.Understand-How-Men-Think.net

Free Teen Dating Site
Browse Profiles and Make Your Own. Find a Local Hottie. Totally Free!
www.eSpin.com

Public Relations Mgmt.
Double Your PR Productivity with PR Software From Vocus. Free Demo!
www.vocus.com



That's just creepy.

Comments

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

No, see, you have to work with the demon amazon's recommendation algorithm if you want it to love you properly. You have to feed it a rich diet of information, and reward it when it's right, by clicking on things. It thrives on clicks.

Eeep! Sorry! I've been sucked into Supernatural fic (kill me now) and there are a lot of demons in there, in several senses of the term.

[kispexi2.livejournal.com]

From the single half-episode I watched, I'd say the most malignant of those was the script-writer.

[emeraldsedai.livejournal.com]

Well, there's only one Joss, and I hear he's busy, but yeah, the show ain't great literature. It is, in fact, mostly crap with a redeeming veneer of two angsty, doomed characters portrayed by extremely attractive young actors.

It has a lot in common with Due South in that regard, and like Due South (and, come to that, The X-Files), it gives rise to masses of very good fic for exactly that reason.

There's something to be said for a show that actually needs fic to round it out.