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How I divorced Google

20.03.2012
I sat recently at the Grand Opening Ceremony at CeBIT 2012 in Hannover. There was a huge crowd of dignitaries, business people, and captains of German industry. They were waiting to hear from the President of Brazil, the Chancellor of Germany, and the Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt. Each gave a keynote. As the event's them was Managing Trust, it seemed salient for me to listen specifically to Schmidt, perhaps one last time. It's not that I don't respect the German Chancellor or the President of Brazil, but I wasn't trying to divorce myself from the organizations they represent.

You see, I'm leaving Google, in toto -- meaning in every single possible personal way. What you're reading is the first seven days in the attempt, which is ongoing.

If you live in the modern world, leaving Google is both heresy and damn difficult to do. My primary motivation is that I don't believe . But you should know I cannot know the truth of its claims; I simply don't trust them. I was raised to be skeptical.

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Day one: Inventory

The content industry is tied to Google Analytics, which is the oil well in Google's basement that fuels and funds many things that Google does. It's a brilliant system. It serves ads based on demographics gleaned from analysis of user behavior and advertiser needs. The more an ad is targeted and salient or relevant for the user, the better chance a user will click on the ad for whatever purposes the ad portends. It's automated in such a way that it has become a vast machine. Lots of money is made with targeted clicks.