Needless to say, I’m sorry but the self evident facts here are all things which I applaud Google for. I’d rather just get ads throughout my daily life and have everything be a LOT cheaper to me than to have to always pay with my bleeding heart to afford the things I’m addicted to, like easy-to-make food and television. The other stuff sounds more like misinformation twisted into scare tactics by people who aren’t really researching their facts, like the people who made Zeitgeist The Movie.” All of that work pointing fingers so hard at what was obviously suspicious and problematic, that they lost track of reality and got nowhere. I speak as someone who just hears these claims and the thought of paranoia comes to mind. I don’t have time to research them myself, they just seem to have that air about them.

As for privacy though, I think the age of privacy is extinct. No one is ever going to be completely safe from prying eyes. Peeping Toms don’t even need to leave their homes any more.

A business is about making money and the fastest way to make money is to sell a product that people want to buy and to learn from Potpie girl herself that we are “the product” then that tells us we are being “sold” to the highest bidder.

In the real world you would not just give out your personal home address and phone number to a stranger if they walked up to you and said I have a free gift to give you but first I need you to write down all your contact information on this piece of paper first, then I will give it to you. We would look at them like they were crazy and say no way buster.

But everyday people sign up for free offers and gladly handover their credit card numbers, home address, phone number and zip code without a blink of an eye. Not knowing who is behind the capture page. Then they cry holy murder when they get ripped off!

In the real world if a grocery store owner notices that a certain brand of cereal is selling faster than another brand they will move that cereal to the front of the store so that more customers can see it to buy it or if a television commercial advertises a certain type of paper towels at noon the same time each day, it would have to mean they are targeting housewives specifically…….

So why would anyone think that the internet is any different, it makes sense to me that anyone who comes online is going to be marketed to and in order to do that, the search engines will need to gather information and study search patterns, such as where people go when they log on each day and how long they spend on specific sites during the week, etc.

To me the scary place is not Google because they have no hidden agendas, pretty much they are an open book. For instance if you want to rank in the search engines, just write about things that matter the most to Google and their advertisers. ( a clue is to just watch commercials all day long or flip through a magazine and then you will know what to write about). It doesn’t take all these keyword tools and special e-courses to know what people are interested in buying.

We only have to look as far as our own household, what we buy every month to survive, so does everyone else. What ever companies we use to transact our business, so does everyone else. What ever stage of life we are in and consider important than so do most other people in our age group, demographic or economic status.

Oh I almost forgot, what scares me about the internet is not Google, if anyone wants to know who they should be scared of it would be: FACEBOOK!

To me that is some scary stuff, Google gathers information, while Facebook gathers memories.

I remember when I was a kid Bell Telephone got busted up. People were freaking because they thought the phones would stop working. They didn’t and in the end competition lowered rates and brought better service.

There was an old line on Laugh In A 60’S TV show that went “We’re the phone company, we dont care, we dont have to” I think this is where we are with Google and while they need us for content and to sell crap to we really dont need them.

But like all power mongers they keep you beholden. People cant live without food but farmers get treated like dirt. Banks need your money but wont give you a loan. Those in power figure out how to put the thumbscrews to those they really need so they can never gain an upper hand. Absolute power corrupts absolutely!

*popcorn [sic]

This was the most entertaining exchange I’ve read in quite some time. Same time next week? I think Debi won it, just for the record. BUT I can put some pop corn on and we can go round 3 (4?).

OK, no, really – that was a good read. Enjoyed it.

I disagree, Marlene – not paying high taxes and keeping more profits is just smart business. The assumption is that taxes are a patriotic duty when the world’s economy is global is archaic.

Personally, if I could totally avoid paying taxes to our irresponsible government, I’d do it in a heartbeat…but unfortunately that’s not happening.

If you want to talk traitorous, talk to the politicians who are running up our country’s national debt without reservation. That’s traitorous.

As a search marketer/affiliate, I love their traffic…

But even then, there are plenty of times when their traffic monopoly bites where it hurts: in the pocket book…while scraper sites out-rank the sites they scrape? This happened to me not that long ago, and there’s nothing to be done about it.

I long for the day that Bing, Yahoo! or some other search engine takes massive market share from Google because this just isn’t good for the consumer. We can be pacified with “free mobile phones” but are they really free? Aren’t we just giving them more free research?

When does it stop? Where does it lead?

It’s not good. People who say otherwise are blind to history and unfortunately, there’s nothing that can be done about it (and yes, I know it sounds like I’m paranoid, I guess I should never have read Orwell or world history).

My eyes are starting to burn.

Basically, Authorship requires you to link between your Google profile and any content you want associated with your profile. Microdata allows you to tag content to help Google understand more clearly what you are referring to. For instance you use this to tell Google “I’m about to start talking about a movie by the name of Avatar.” Or “I’m talking about the concept that an avatar is a person that represents a diety.”

Basically, Google’s just trying to get MORE data out of people who create online content.

It’d be interesting to see a case study of whether microdata markup can help a site rank higher or not.

Carlos,

I got several things from your reply. First, you are easily offended as shown in your original comment as well as your response to mine. No where in Grants observation regarding education imply that he was resentful of those of us who have one. Second, you missed the point of my post (or possibly in your education years thus far you have yet to run across the word “imply”, who knows).

As for education, I can now see from your response that it’s more than likely the fact that we disagree on the definition of the word that’s causing the misunderstanding. In my (albeit ignorant) world, “brings the mind into conformity with that which is true, good, and beautiful.” is what one gains through personal development/enlightment/spiritual enrichment/etc….NOT thru “education”. (And yes, I’ve spent many years in THAT department too….and would not ask for a refund for that either).

The fact that “the highest paying professions require a college degree and more” doesn’t change the fact that it still provides a career (a J.O.B.) where, unless you move outside of one of those boxes you so eloquently put everyone into, you will always be working for someone else and have limits placed on that high pay, as proven by my reference to the fact that many self-made millionaires have a 10th grade education and a GED (or did your lazy mind neglect to read that part?).

However, given the obvious laziness of MY mind (not to mention the fact that it’s rude to have hijacked Jennifer’s post over education to begin with, given that that was NOT the point of her wonderful post), I will end my conversation with you here.

I do however, wonder exactly what a Social Scientist does. Since you obviously possess no part of the “social” side, I can only assume that you earn your living through the scientist side. And truly there’s no need for you to answer here because “Frankly my dear Carlos, I don’t give a damn!”

My apologies to you Jennifer. I got a LOT of information from your post and will always be back to read more.

Debi J

P.S. To my fellow HB TD (yes, you know who you are)….I couldn’t help it…it was just one of “those”! 🙂