Google is becomeing more like Microsoft...

...meaning that as they get more powerful, they start believing that their s#^t doesn't stink, that they know best how you should configure or run your computer, what you should and shouldn't have access to, and how your computer and your internet access should be used.

Poppo's recent run in with fleaPay's PrayPal prompted me to post this.

As many of you probably know, Google took over Youtube a while back. A few months ago, they stopped accepting old Youtube account logins and forced members to get a new -- or link to an existing -- Google account in order to sign back into their Youtube accounts.

NOW, they are forcing users to be logged into only ONE linked Google and Youtube account at a time. In other words, if I'm logged into Google with another (email) account and try to access YouTube, it comes up as logged out, and if I log in using my specific Youtube/Google account, it logs OUT the other tabs in my browser that were logged into my other Gmail.

This is REALLY pissing me off. Since I usually am logged into a different Google account for other activities, I basically have been shut out of Youtube unless I decide that I want to go through the hassle of signing in for a short session and then having to both log out and log back into Google the next time I access it. What a bunch of CRAP. I checked, and they are still using separate cookies for each site, so this is purely a control issue.

As an aside, and again with apologies to those who already know this, Google also filters your searches based on your previous search history and web browsing activity*, so you aren't getting honest search results. If you do a search and have a friend do the same search, you won't get the same results. Many of the items will still be there, but typically in a different order, and some items won't show up in both searches.

Their main focus (regardless of what they say) is to better target you for advertising (connecting you to websites that sell what they think you want to buy), but this filtering also prevents you from seeing a broader spectrum of information on subjects that you want to learn about. (You end up seeing sites that already share you previously visited sites' viewpoints, etc.) They figure that people are more "comfortable" seeing things that are "familiar" to them, so they try to narrow your world to keep you dumbed down and satisfied with the results that you get. This filtering and re-prioritizing is completely separate from the directly paid-for sponsored links at the top of every search result, and is kept very low-key.

In all fairness to them, they now offer an option (in search options) to disable their tailored search results, but I'm not at all convinced that it truly prevents filtering. There is simply too much money involved.

As Google competes with MicroCrap for domination of the world, we end up the losers.

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

*You can help prevent this behavior by blocking "Google Analytics," "Google Adsense," and other hidden trackers. I use Ghostery's Firefox plug-in to do this. If you use iGoogle and have added widgets to your Google home page, you'll have to allow the "Google Widgets" tracker or they won't load.