Thanks, Google. I hate it.

I bought a new TV the other week. It’s branded as a “Google Smart TV”. When I set up the TV, I created a brand new gmail account because I’m trying to de-googlefy my life. Email address is obscure and the account doesn’t list any of my personal details.

Turned off ad tracking, youtube history, and disabled the remote microphone’s “always on” feature.

The other day when I was cooking I was listening to a youtube video on my phone (that uses a different youtube account). The video was about knowing your rights when you’re stopped by the police and what to do and not do when an officer asks you certain questions.

Today I turned on my TV, and lo and behold, youtube recommendations on the home screen of my TV for traffic stops and your basic rights.

Somehow either the TV is still listening to the room or my YouTube app on my phone is communicating with other devices on my network letting them know what’s being watched in the household.

I’m getting really fucking sick and tired of devices listening and watching what I say and do in order to recommend more things to me. It feels like a breach of privacy. I hate how corporations are figuring out all of these sneaky ways to build digital profiles on everyone in order to serve ads (etc) and no one knows how these profiles are handled and who/what they’re being sold to.

If companies like Google are willing to go through this much effort to still track tech savvy adults like me, can you imagine how much data they’re tracking on kids, and what their lives will look like as adults?

Children in this modern post-digital era, for the rest of their days, businesses will have an entire timeline of just about everything they do in their life. We’re straying further and further from our raw human element and will soon be cattle; herded into our collective ranches and fed digital mulch from our God corporate emperors.

Leave a Reply