Google Creepiness: Science or Coincidence? (Premium)

There is a wide range of responses to Google's privacy violations, from those who simply don't care to those who maybe care far too much. But as is so often the case with such subjects, there's a much broader audience right in the middle. These are the people who think they understand the deal they've made with the devil and are willing to give up a bit of their personal information in order to benefit from Google's excellent apps and services.

And yes, I fall into this middle group. And while I have nothing to offer with regards to fully understanding exactly what it is that we're giving up so that we can enjoy the fruits of our Google relationships, I do have stories that make me wonder. Creepy stories.

Creepy can mean a lot of things. We've probably all experienced the creepy usefulness of Google, like when Google Photos somehow correctly identifies my kids from the womb to their current ages (20 and 17, at the time of this writing) and creates and shares with us digital memories. These things are almost always appreciated. But they're also creepy. There's some combination of AI prowess and surveillance occurring there, and while we are right to question this, wonder about our similarity to cows in a stockade heading to food, my God, those are pictures of our kids! How fun.

No, I'm talking about a different kind of creepy. A creepy that comes with no endearing side to take the edge off. To make us forget that Google is an omnipresent force in our lives and not necessarily for the best. That Google fun family photo collages aren't really this firm's central aim.

To be clear, this probably isn't isolated to just Google. But let's just say that Google is very obviously the biggest and creepiest offender. It dominates the online advertising and Internet search markets, creating a virtuous cycle in which each aids and feeds off the other. Google is literally the gatekeeper for the Internet, and that's true whether you explicitly use its services or not.

A couple of stories to illustrate my point.

In early November on First Ring Daily I discussed how I had visited the New Balance website to order a new pair of slip-on shoes that I really like. The shoe in question is the New Balance 770. They cost $80 when they're in stock. But as I found when I visited the site, it was only available in very small and very large sizes, indicating that New Balance no longer makes them. So I had to actually do some research, and I purchased other, less desirable shoes.

A week later, I did something I don't normally do, which is to visit the CNN website. Perusing its front page, I scanned through the news of the day. And saw, in a grid of news stories near the bottom of the page, an ad for the New Balance 770. It was just a picture of the shoes with a New Balance logo and nothing else, as I recall. (I didn't take a screenshot, sorry.)

Intrigued by this non-coincidence, I clicked on the ad. And was brought to the same page I had visited p...