Google Accounts
Google Accounts
I don’t know whether you think Google is great or garbage, but I tend towards the latter for several reasons. The first was when they called me a liar four years ago and closed my Adsense account costing me $1,000 per month, but I have other reasons too now.
Geo-location is a pet hate of mine and Google uses it extensively. However, as a Brit living in Thailand, I find it incredibly frustrating to have my screen often translated into Thai which I can’t read.
I can imagine the advertisers being proud of their smart adverts translating themselves into different languages according to the geo-location (geographical location) of the reader, but the stupid thing is that I don’t know a single Thai who has a credit card or has ever bought anything online, whereas I do it every month.
If I can read what I am looking for. These ads are shooting their owners in the foot!
Now that is bad enough, but I have set my browser, Firefox, not to disclose my location (for the reasons above), so why is Google ignoring my preference?
That is pretty rude as far as I am concerned.
So, the advertisers are not getting exactly what they expect and I continue to be frustrated by the idiot giant that is Google.
Today, geo-location hit me and Google in another way. I write books and sell them online for a living and I have spent the last three weeks putting them on Kobo and GooglePlay. I got 42 up with no problems, but today Google’s upload page was in Thai, although it knows it is my page (my photo and my name are on it) and my settings say exclusively English. So now I can’t upload my other 60 books to GooglePlay.
How stupid can you get?
So, I spent two hours this afternoon, trying to find a way to put this idiocy right. In vain, but I did see a switch called ‘Shared Endorsements’. Have you noticed that one in your Google Accounts?
It seems that it is turned on by default. It gives Google the right to use your name to endorse any product that you have looked at or bought online. I certainly didn’t switch it on since I wouldn’t give Google the skin off a cold rice pudding.
Isn’t that nice of them?
Needless to say, I turned mine off.
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Podcast: Google Accounts
