Wednesday, July 4, 2007

My plan has angered Google

The ad visiting effort has been a great success!! The money actually added up to an amount that, if maintained daily for the next eighteen years, could take a big chunk out of Max's tuition. Thanks to all who showed interest and took the time.

One small problem/opportunity... it seems this scheme has come to the attention of Google, my cyber overlord, who's probably monitoring this post as I type. No sooner than the bounty of all your generous clicks registered, did they send me an e-mail explaining all the prohibited forms of click activity. Apparently, encouraging people to click on the ads is frowned upon. I wrote them back to ask exactly what I am allowed to write and say to my friends and family but they have not yet responded. Should I expect the door to be kicked in any moment? Does Google have its own version of Gitmo?

I have to admit that they might have a point, my actions could be interpreted as exploiting a good service. This blog being provide for free by them could give rise to a school of thought that says: "I will be grateful for this blog, my free e-mail and the ads that target me as I type, the satellite and street view pictures that allow anyone in the world to see me picking my nose in front of my house, the de facto source and organizer of all the worlds information." Who cares if they turn in Chinese web browsers who type words like "democracy", its the Chinese government's right to imprison whoever they want. Its an inevitable accident of the free market that bad things happen in the course of business. Its not like they are telling friends to go to their website and check out the ads. After all, their mission statement is "Do no evil" so they can't possibly be bad.
I realize this logic may seem as tortured as a Chinese web surfer, but if they don't like what I'm doing all I can say is tough freakin' noogies. They should come up with a legal way to stop me. Which gives me an idea. Maybe reckless free speech law suits against giant companies could put Max through school. Why throw pebbles at the moon when I could be hurling boulders at it?

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