Google is great. It brings together all the things we like into one convenient place. Except Social Networking. They havent quite done that right yet. However, things are starting to get a little scary. Google Adsense will now show you adverts (on webpages that host them) that are relevant to things you have searched for before. I never agreed to that. Oh wait, that updated Google Terms Of Service I agreed to recently? Crap.
Here’s an example of how it works:
- I search for a movie I want to see, using Google Search of course.
- I inevitably get to the IMDB where I go off on a tangent.
- Five hours later I visit a website which uses Google Ads.
- An advert showing the movie I searched for hours earlier pops up.
- I click it.
- Google (and the site owner, although much less so) earn money.
So e-Commerce isnt dead. It is just Pwned by Google.
Even more annoying is the fact that the site which showed me the ad based on my search results was my own! Do Google pwn me?
