Google is after me…and you’re next
Imagine if “Ma Bell” needed to approve every phone call … or Verizon, etc.
I understand the use of algorithms to monitor Internet traffic. I understand they want to see what you’re up to so they can sell you something. Also you may be a bad guy plotting something nefarious.
My take is they are managed by a bunch of f***ing morons who graduated at the bottom of the info systems class.
Now I’m a writer and an educator who is constantly on my iPad researching various topics. I am constantly interrupted by Google trying to determine if I’m a bot…several times a day. This has been going on for two years. I’m shown a very poor grid of pictures and asked to check those with cars or bridges or traffic lights or hills or bikes or crosswalks. I have answered these questions thousands of times - more than once in a session. And somehow my humanity eludes them.
Now this regular insult is accompanied by a new action. After I’ve identified their barely decipherable photos, they now tell me my search rights are being suspended because of an inordinate unexplainable number of inquiries. So I’m not a bot, but they’ve decided not to trust me anyway.
Inconveniently , I switch to another search engine to continue my work uninterrupted. I am used to Google and the most productive way to ask them questions. However, I’ve been on a search to replace them permanently. More than Ai, they need programmers with common sense.
At the age of 87 and with poor eyesight, I need an algorithm that gives me a “free pass”. And one that will actually answer my question on the first page, and not give answers based on a frequently used word totally unrelated to my search.
While I’m at it, let me take down the a-holes involved with Apple. They sold me a keyboard case to go with my iPad Pro. But they keep interrupting my work with notices that I’m using an incompatible device…which is working very well. At what point will they understand that I got their stupid message and STOP. But nothing is more frustrating than their word processor’s insistence on replacing my spellings with theirs. Some embarrassingly have slipped by. Who can I sue?
I tend to work very fast, but I go at 50% capacity due to Apple’s and Google’s sheer incompetence to tool up a system to meet my very ordinary needs. I don’t do graphics or games. I just write.
With the clock ticking down on my life. I don’t have time to waste (JUST GOT AN ACCESSORY UNSUPPORTED NOTICE) on crap like that. An interrupted chain of thought at this stage is a thought lost.
Writing to Google or Yahoo (ACCESSORY UNSUPPORTED) is nigh impossible. Any question is answered by a bot. So how do I punish them for that?
And finally none of their software is intuitive. In the early days of WordPerfect, I knew what to do without referencing a manual. Now, there are so many functions I cannot access because the process it too complex - too many directional waves required.
The only revenge I can get is by adding my two cents to every agency’s attempt to rein them in and fine them. I wish some fake news activists would train their sights on them.
Try “Swiss Cows” search engine. It’s got a clean look and seems impervious to the influences that bury what you really want. Does not track or sell your info.