When I thought about starting this blog, I contemplated looking into Google+. I have no idea what it does, I figured it's just Facebook-Google-style. Which wouldn't be so bad for a rant-column like this. But whatever.
On Google: Back in the day there was AltaVista, Yahoo, and AOL... if you used something else, you were outside the realm of normalcy. I had a friend who told me about Google... This dude was into OpenSource... ran Linux and all that. Listened to indie music before indie music had a nickname... believed in online privacy... Yahknow, a real outsider. So, he told me about Google, and I looked at it, and I thought "wow, here's a great search engine that doesn't give you all the garbage, and is a friend of the OpenSource community..." HAH! I won't even go into what it's become. Oh, and then I read an article about their Beowulf clusters (yahknow, thousands of linux machines... COOL!) And then they stood up when the DOJ tried to subpoena search records from them... I actually respected them for that move! Then I found out that they actually have a *censored* version of Google in China... And it makes you wonder... Their algorithms are pretty good at censoring information already, by burying things that
the mainstream isn't looking for under thousands of pages of pop-culture... But who knows what censoring they're *intentionally* doing here already. I remember when searching google meant actually *knowing what you're looking for* and *knowing how to locate it.* Now, if I do a search for "EDID" I get top results for "Edit" and no info on how to correct the search. I miss my raw-text search engines... yahknow 'EDID monitors OR monitor OR vga -edit AND OSX OR "OS X"' if anyone knows of a better one, or a way to convince Google to work the way I remember... please let me know.
Anyways, Google+ is kinda creepy right off the bat. I tried to create an account using a nickname for trial-purposes and here's what I got:
It's not enough that I submitted to their rigorous Gmail sign-up procedure?!
I don't even want to go into the details of *everything that's wrong* with this... It reminds me of a quote, I'm sure I heard it was a literal quote from someone high-up at Google... basically said something like "when your kids turn 18, they should seriously consider changing their names because of the online profiles they had as kids." Google's scary, sorry. Yeah, blogger's via Google... I know. And it's still my only search engine... And, maybe one day if someone actually bothers to read this blog, I could make some money through their targetted advertising... can always hope :)
Here're some fine examples from the Google+ "Name Policy:"
There's more!
Violations!
Nah... we're not talking "recommendations" here, we're talking flat-out "violations." I won't bother to paste all the BS they claim they can and will do if you violate their policies... let's just say it's ugly.
Appeals! This is the best part, seriously... They have this down to a friggin' science... It's more complicated to appeal your name on Google+ than it is to get a replacement Social Security Card (I've had to do it). And you have to give them more *personal* information!
And name-changes... again with the more complicated and rigorously-enforced than Social Security:
I like this part at the bottom of the sign-up page:
HAHAHAHA "and almost nothing with your boss." Why? Because all the people who'd be willing to submit to these terms-of-service either are too young to have a boss, or never aspire to working for a place like Google? 'Cause, seriously... I'm starting to think the Google services are nothing more than weed-out processes for (or great means for spying on) potential employees.
Oh good god, I really worry what tinted-window-vans will be parked outside my apartment after posting this.
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