Mediaboss Marketing

I did something this month that I haven't done in years: I changed my browser home page.

The last time I made the switch, it was from Alta Vista to Google. Anyone remember Alta Vista? It had the cleanest, most simple, and speediest search interface. Then, pressured by a need to generate revenue, it morphed into a ponderous portal.

Google then took the #1 place in my heart for clean, simple, and fast. But this month, Google started giving me the creepies. Last week, Google's new privacy policy went into effect, driven by the company's need to monetize my on-line activity even more than it already has.

Now, on one hand, I can certainly understand why a company would want to consolidate 60 or 70 policies into one single policy - just for operational sanity, if nothing else.

But, on the other hand, the consolidation brings into focus the integration of data across Google's applications and by extension, the way that data records, reflects, and repackages for sale one's life.

With its new policy, Google makes no bones about using your data, my data, and our data to sell, sell, and sell. If you don't like it, says Google, then leave. Don't use our products.

And so, I'm not.

Or at least I'm trying not to. Turns out it's pretty hard to go cold turkey from Google simply because Google shows up, well, everywhere.

Honestly, I don't think for a second that Google cares about me, personally. It doesn't want to sell what I, Teresa Martin, see or do. But, it does care about me as a set of eyeballs in its collection and it wants to be sure I'm packaged with just the right mark-up for its advertiser customers.

With the new policy, what I type in my Gmail account, what I do in Google docs, what I post in Google +, what I watch on YouTube, and what I add to Google Maps not to mention what I search for in the Google search engine combine to create a target profile sellable to the highest bidder.

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EYES AROUND: Big Data: The octopus that engulfs us all