Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

Dear Reader,  This is a bit of an angry rant.  Please read at your own discretion.  Dear Google, I use your services. Well, I use Google Search, Gmail, Blogger and Translate. Most of your other so-called services I just complain about. Or actively avoid, as in the case of YouTube. You see, dear Google, I am liking you less and less. We became close friends some ten years ago -- our 'ten year anniversary' is coming up... Will you congratulate me and tell me you love being friends with me? Of course not. At most you'll hassle me about buying something, spending my money on something, installing something that will allow you to better track my online movement or... No, wait. Let me start over. What will happen is this: In your quest to learn more about me, who I am and how I behave, you will only collect more information that gets passed on to more parties wanting to use that information to send me advertising you or they think I might like, send me offers to s...

I work in customer service. Working in customer service means giving people my name in good faith and hoping that those people will understand that me giving them my name does not mean I want to become friends online or in real life. Having encountered some customers who do not understand the difference between a friendly professional chat while waiting for a computer to come up with results and something else, I have now stopped giving people my real name. I am also changing and rearranging the information I have available online. As a result of "editing" my online privacy I have reverted most of my blog posts to draft. I will be going through the posts, editing where necessary and removing a post where it is too personal. The others I will put back online. I look forward to a new, changed and improved blog,  I hope you will join me in that enthusiasm!