Duped

Up early the morning of my 75th birthday. Log on. The Google doodle catches my attention: blue, yellow and red letters with a small candle-like flame above each one. I was beguiled. By some accident of fate, this particular mprning, Google had no festival, or person it wanted to recognize. So it simply posted the candles of a birthday cake and directed the viewer who clicked on the doodle to a Wikipedia page listing all the famous people born on November 17.

A nice coincidence, I thought, that today of all days Google had nothing to say about someone else. It felt almost like a blessing, a sign. I took a screen shot of the birthday-candle doodle and forwarded it to several friends. Little did I know I had been duped.

It was late in the day when someone pointed out that Google has my personal information. Google knows me. It knows what ads to send to me. It knows my birthday. Google has an algorhythm that automatically sende this ego-stroking doodle to every birthday boy. Google's thinking may be, get people to feel loved by Google and they'll spend more time on Google. More time means more ad revenues.

Instead, I feel creeped out. I feel like the victim in a horror movie who receives a call late on a foggy night. The phone rings. I pick it up. A breathy, threatening voice says, I can see you. I know exactly where you are and what you're doing. Shaken, I hang up and close all the blinds. But the phone rings a second time, and the voice describes the food that's on my plate and the other choices I have in the fridge.

I am spooked. Someone is watching every move. Someone knows more about me than I know.

Google probably thinks of itself as benign, even friendly. But is like a man walking toward me with a gun. He thinks he's the good guy, but he doesn't look at all loke that to me.