Wednesday, December 31, 2003

BIG GOOGLE IS WATCHING YOU

I have been watching the advertisements at the top of this page with some interest, and have noted that they change with the content of the posts. Since I’ve only been doing this for less than a month, it is hardly a perfect study, but once Star Trek was mentioned, the process started. It seems to take a couple of days to kick in, but, within 48 hours, there it was, a banner for online Trek DVDs. Then, after a dialogue with kaymo about AI, ads for robotic hard and software replaced Star Trek. My suspicion is that some devious, probably Google-driven robot scans for preset keywords and adjusts the advertising accordingly. This is, of course, the same technology as Carnivore that the NSA and Homeland Security use to catch terrorists. But we trust Google. Why? Because it’s Google. No better reason. A dear friend suggested I keep a list and see if my theory pans out over time. Ever the Instant Gratification Kid, however, I decided I would attempt to force the issue. So let’s post the following random list and see what happens...

John Wayne
The Simpsons
The Central Intelligence Agency
Godzilla
50 Cent
Dildo
Universal Pictures
Newsweek
THC

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