Sometimes I worry. Most times, being a nerd takes precedence.
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Google does know everything about me. At least, it tries to. Only old school nerdery, like book reading, the real made from dead trees deal, is somewhat safe from Google's grasp.
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Letting a company go through the contents of my entire (virtual) life, only for the sake of a free e-mail account makes me one of the biggest sell-outs in human history.
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Yet I am resigned to this life of computer controlled intrusion because like any addict, I crave my fix. If information is a drug, then Google is my syringe.
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It is interesting to see the detail down to which a customer is profiled.
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Take for example, the marketing e-mails and Google ads that I get.
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Hence. new motorcycle/car launches, travelogue websites and camera lens deals hardly skip me by. Google knows and lets me know.
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That I am not married is also public domain information, no thanks to Facebook and thereby some spam master list must have me squarely in Shaadi.com's target zone. Hence the non-stop e-mails from XYZ matrimonial sites assuring me of the best match.
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A problem easily resolved, only a matter of setting my Spam filter to weed out matrimonial website e-mails. If you don't know what that is, sorry for wasting your time thus far, please stop reading now.
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This is where things get intriguing.
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In the true tradition of a trunerd, I actually check the subject lines of even my spam e-mails before deleting them. What if there was an e-mail from 'QMed Daily' that I actually wanted to read?
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The initial e-mails were all dating site 101 types with subjects like "Find your dream partner", "Find your opening partner" (a cricket World Cup special inadvertently suggesting 9 more options to come), "Find that connection" etc.
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Later, as they-who-track-all-my-online-activity noticed, the e-mails were going to my Trash folder unopened and then onto oblivion, there came a slight twist to the approach. The e-mail subject lines took the tone of "Let your dream partner find you"/"God's planned something for you" shifting the onus of the search to the other half.
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On one hand, I find it hilarious that a computer algorithm has probably tagged "lazy" against my name in some mega database, not an inaccurate tagging at all. On the other hand, a slight frown is warranted too. So far I have been able to keep up with the tricks of the teams in Palo Alto or Poland. But what happens if they figure out something about me before I do?
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