Freaking Google Again...

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Geek on the Hill
So today I log into my Google account -- which at this point I only have because of the one client for whom I still write Google+ entries -- and I can't log in because of "unusual activity" on my account. The only way I can restore access is to give Google my cell phone number so they can send me a text.

There was no "unusual activity." I log into that account almost every day to write the entry, and then I log back out.

Rather, Google has been using every method possible to get me to give them my cell phone number for more than a year. I finally gave in and gave them a landline number (actually, a Magic Jack number that I never answer -- I don't even know where the dongle is, to be quite honest) about six months ago, but that's not enough for Google. They insist on having my cell number. And after more than a year of my refusing to give it to them, they finally locked me out of my account until I gave it to them.

Well, it'll be a cold day in hell before I give Google my cell phone number. Most of my relatives don't even have my cell phone number. Luckily, some quick searching (using Yahoo! search) brought me to http://www.pinger.com, where I was able to open up a "textfree web" account for free, which comes with a phone number that can receive (and I assume send) text messages over the Web, without using an actual phone.

Just to be defiant, I chose an area code about 3,000 miles from where I live, and provided the bogus number I was issued in that area code to Google as my cell number. They dutifully sent the text message with the verification code to that number, and I dutifully copied the code from pinger.com back into Google's login page to get my account access restored.

Am I wrong for getting just a little bit of sadistic pleasure from knowing that after a year of hounding me for my cell phone number, Google now knows a little less about me than they did this morning -- because the number I gave them is a sham?

-Rich
 
They are indeed bound and determined to get my cell number. Umm... no. No way.
 
When I moved to Texas and sold my Iowa business, I was locked by contract into paying Verizon for a defunct cell number for a couple of years. It still technically existed, but there was no phone associated with it anymore.

I gave Google that one. ;)
 
when my gmail account got hacked it was very nice being able to use my cell phone to get my account re-activated.
 
How do they handle someone who has no cell phone?
 
denverpilot said:
Set up Google Voice and send them to themselves. ;)
Click to expand...

I actually have a GV number, although I'm not sure what it is offhand. But to check it, I would have had to be able to log in to my Google account. That wasn't happening.

-Rich
 
This whole obsession on Google's part with having people's cell numbers irks me to no end. Google claims they only want the information for account-recovery reasons, in case someone's account is hacked or they forget their password. But that's a lot of nonsense.

First of all, Google already has two alternate email addresses for me on file, but the option to verify my account by sending an email to either of those addresses wasn't available. There was a link explaining how to do that, but in order to use that option I would have had to log in to my account -- which wasn't happening until I provided a cell number.

Secondly, if my account actually had been hacked, what would prevent the hacker from changing the cell phone number (or the alternate email addresses, for that matter) once they were in my account?

Thirdly, during the past year, I have moved twice, and I have switched my primary credit union to a local one. I have therefore made the following changes to my account between October 15 of 2011 and August 1 of 2012:


  • New physical address
  • New mailing address
  • Additional alternate email address (because I changed ISPs)
  • New phone number (albeit a MagicJack number that I never answer, but still)
  • New credit union and account number (for Adsense payments, because I haven't totally removed their ads from my sites yet)
  • New W-9 for tax purposes

None of these changes triggered any sort of re-authentication other than my having to re-enter my password.

In addition, I have been accessing my account from a new IP address, with a new ISP, since August 1st; and this is the same IP from which I attempted to access my account yesterday, using the same computer, with the same cookies planted on the same browser.

In short, when important information did change on my account, Google did nothing other than ask me for my password; but yesterday, when nothing had changed, they demanded that I provide a cell number -- and gave me no other option but to provide it, despite having two alternate email addresses on file for me.

To me, that says that Google simply wants my cell phone number, period, and will stoop as low as necessary to get it -- including locking me out of my account until I provide it. It's not about password recovery, account security, or anything like that. They simply want people's cell phone numbers.

I can only think of one reason for this, because I don't think Google would actually sell the numbers. They promise not to, anyway; so doing so would instantly destroy what little goodwill the company still enjoys, plus get them into legal trouble. So I suspect that Google has figured out a way to use people's mobile phone and/or Web activity (and possibly GPS information) to more accurately target advertising to users.

I think this obsession with data mining is going to backfire against Google. Their services are not so great or so special that people are going to tolerate this sort of bullying forever. But then again, who knows... if people are stupid enough to give their personal information to Mark Zuckerberg and his Bratva buddies, I guess they'll give it to anyone.

For my part, if I didn't have business reasons why I have to keep my Google account open, I would have closed it a long time ago -- the first time they asked me for my cell number. Once I completely back out of Adsense, I figure I'll close my Google account completely and tell my client to post the G+ updates himself. I'll send him the articles, and he can copy and paste them onto the page.

It's really a shame what's happened to Google. There was a time I admired the company. Now, I place them about half a notch above Facebook in the ethics department -- and Facebook is about as low as low gets.

-Rich
 
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SCCutler said:
How do they handle someone who has no cell phone?
Click to expand...

There was no other option available. The instructions to use the option to send an email to either of the two alternate email addresses that Google has on file for me required that I log in, which was impossible until I provided a cell number. It was a Catch-22 sort of thing.

So I guess if you don't have a cell phone, the only option you would have if Google demands your number would either be to go out and buy one, or do what I did and establish a phony cell number to accept the text message.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
Am I wrong for getting just a little bit of sadistic pleasure from knowing that after a year of hounding me for my cell phone number, Google now knows a little less about me than they did this morning -- because the number I gave them is a sham?

-Rich
Click to expand...

No, you're not! I've had a few brushes with Google accounts and noticed the asking for cell phone numbers, and like you, there is no way I'm giving that out. I guess that's what we get for "free" services.

**** (rhymes with duck) them!
 
RJM62 said:
It's really a shame what's happened to Google. There was a time I admired the company. Now, I place them about half a notch above Facebook in the ethics department -- and Facebook is about as low as low gets.
Click to expand...

When, back when they were still a start-up? ;)

They were always going to do this... Find more ways to target advertising directly at users. It's their entire method of making money.

I don't find their behavior strange or surprising at all. They're an advertising company. That's their bread and butter.

Now that they've got the foothold they wanted in the phone/tablet market, expect fascinating changes to Android that both annoy and amaze, like location-based ads on the device that are enabled by default.

It'll come. They have no choice, if they want to continue growing.
 
Just went through that, though it was asking me to confirm a number. Ideletedthenumber, clicked save and continue and I wine through with out any complaints. They don't tell you the cell number is not required, but it takes the submissions without it. Any number would probably do :dunno:


Edit: I can't seemtohithespacebarpnmyipad.
 
I just don't see this, or any as targeting, being a bad thing. Look, you're going to have ads thrown at you, why not make them relevant?

It beats the hell out of Viagra ads all day long. Google wont sell your SPI, its illegal to do so. They'll just use it to improve your marketing experience. In return, you will continue to get awesome features and new services that make life better.

I make heavy use of Google to make my life better. Voice, gmail, calendar, apparently, docs, drive, Android, google + (hangouts actually allow me to connect with family, and allowed my parents/sister to meet my child before we even left the hospital. Without hangouts, that would have happened many months later), plus many more features are a daily staple for me.

See it for what it is....its not evil, and its not altruistic. Its business.
 
SkyHog said:
See it for what it is....its not evil, and its not altruistic. Its business.
Click to expand...
A good thing to keep in mind...it is what it is. I get lots of value from Google, but I never pretend it's "free". There is always a cost, even if it's not (directly) monetary. It's up to everyone to decide whether the value returned is worth the cost. In my case, I've decided it is.

I don't think there's a single company I do business with that doesn't do something I don't like, but that I cave in to anyway because I don't want to do without their service. Three easy examples that most of us probably accept without thinking too much about it:

  • The grocery store pays me to let them track my purchases via their "loyalty card" (ha! if I'm so loyal, why do I have four "loyalty cards" in my wallet?).
  • The credit card company says I can only use their card if I waive my right to using the courts to resolve disagreements...I have to use binding arbitration, instead.
  • The cell phone company knows where I am at all times, keeps archives of all my texts, knows my websurfing habits (at least from my mobile devices), etc. I wish they didn't, but there's no way I'm giving up my mobile device, so there you go.
Google's just another example.
 
masloki said:
Just went through that, though it was asking me to confirm a number. Ideletedthenumber, clicked save and continue and I wine through with out any complaints. They don't tell you the cell number is not required, but it takes the submissions without it. Any number would probably do :dunno:


Edit: I can't seemtohithespacebarpnmyipad.
Click to expand...

I've had that situation too, sometimes with an error when I left the box blank; but if I refreshed the page, it would be fine.

This was a different demand. It demanded a cell number, sent a six-digit numeric code to that number, and required that I enter the code on the Web page, before it would let me in.

My hunch is that after having been told to bug off X-number of times, they take off the gloves and force the issue. There certainly was nothing in my behavior that was in any way "unusual activity."

Maybe someone was spoofing the email address and sending spam out under it, but that's pretty doubtful because I only use my gmail address when interacting with Google. I doubt anyone else even knows it unless Google suggested me as a contact to them. I certainly never gave it to anyone.

But even if that were the case, one would think that Google would know how to tell a forgery from the genuine article.

I suppose it's also possible that someone was trying to hack into my account, but if that was the case, why not use either of the two alternate email addresses they have on file rather than demand a cell number?

-Rich
 
SkyHog said:
I just don't see this, or any as targeting, being a bad thing. Look, you're going to have ads thrown at you, why not make them relevant?

It beats the hell out of Viagra ads all day long. Google wont sell your SPI, its illegal to do so. They'll just use it to improve your marketing experience. In return, you will continue to get awesome features and new services that make life better.

I make heavy use of Google to make my life better. Voice, gmail, calendar, apparently, docs, drive, Android, google + (hangouts actually allow me to connect with family, and allowed my parents/sister to meet my child before we even left the hospital. Without hangouts, that would have happened many months later), plus many more features are a daily staple for me.

See it for what it is....its not evil, and its not altruistic. Its business.
Click to expand...

Nick, I don't think Google's services are all that special or unique. I've gotten along really well without any of them, for quite a long time. But to each his own. I also don't especially care what kind of ads they send me. I pretty much ignore them, anyway.

That being said, I would gladly pay Google a reasonable fee in return for being able to use their services without ads, and without being tracked, if such an option were available. But frankly, I'm really not impressed enough by their services to even use them at the current price -- which is free.

I have a GV number, but I don't even know what it is offhand. It's useful as a forwarding number, but those are a dime a dozen. In terms of quality of connection, MagicJack at $20/year is far superior.

If I cared to, I could buy the "MagicJack Plus," which plugs right into the router, doesn't need to be connected to a PC, and still provides unlimited domestic calling for $20/year. I haven't bothered because I never answer that number, anyway, and misplaced the dongle some time during my last move. It's a number I give to entities I never want to hear from, anyway, such as supermarkets and department stores (for their "loyalty cards"), financial institutions, most government agencies, etc.

Google Search has sucked for at least a year. I've given up on it. The only way I can get relevant results from Google Search is to sign in to a VPN proxy to change my IP address, open FF in Private Browsing mode, go directly to Google without hitting any other site first, submit my query, say "No" when it asks me if I really meant to search for something else, put Google into Verbatim mode, repeat the search, and skip the first two or three pages of link farms.

I used to use Google Calendar until it decided to "sync" itself to a new BlackBerry, and in the process deleted all of my past, current, and future appointments -- along with all of my contacts, just for good measure. I restored the information using BB desktop (which is what I should have done in the first place), whereupon Google spent the next few days duplicating all my appointments, contacts, and so forth.

Why? Because the totally unnecessary Google Sync app that installed itself along with some other Google stuff (Maps, probably) was too stupid to either disable the BB's native sync, or to advise the user to do so; so the two sync apps spent the next few days trying to out-sync each other ad infinitum until the BB collapsed from exhaustion.

I have never used Google Hangouts, so I really can't say much about that one.

Docs is ho-hum, drive is just another online storage place among thousands of others, and gmail is just another free mail service -- and not a very good one, at that, in my opinion. At least Yahoo! Mail has never locked me out of my account and demanded my cell phone number in the decade or two that I've been using it.

G+, which I have locked down as tightly as possible, is so clunky as to make even Yahoo! 360 (which I also have no use for) look elegant by comparison -- and that's not even considering the fact that I have only slightly more faith in Google's privacy and security practices than I do in the bratva over at Facebook.

So let's see... I have a gmail account that I use only to communicate with Google, a G+ account that I use only to update my client's G+ page, and an Adsense account that I'm in the process of removing from my sites because ever since they started weighting user data more heavily for ad selection, my CTR and revenue are down about 80 percent.

Just by way of comparison, my Amazon revenue per thousand impressions is five times that of Google Adsense -- and for me to get paid by Amazon, the visitor actually has to buy something, not just click an ad. That says something.

So I'm glad Google works for you, Nick. But for me, not so much.

-Rich
 
masloki said:
Just went through that, though it was asking me to confirm a number. Ideletedthenumber, clicked save and continue and I wine through with out any complaints. They don't tell you the cell number is not required, but it takes the submissions without it. Any number would probably do :dunno:


Edit: I can't seemtohithespacebarpnmyipad.
Click to expand...
That happens when you have no thumbs.
 
SCCutler said:
How do they handle someone who has no cell phone?
Click to expand...
You print a strip of numbers and take if with you like in the OPIE days. I have some in my vallet. Not saying that N.H. is full of it, because Google's bots are known to act in nasty ways from time to time. But it's ok not to have a cellphone.
 
RJM62 said:
Google Search has sucked for at least a year. I've given up on it. The only way I can get relevant results from Google Search is to sign in to a VPN proxy to change my IP address, open FF in Private Browsing mode, go directly to Google without hitting any other site first, submit my query, say "No" when it asks me if I really meant to search for something else, put Google into Verbatim mode, repeat the search, and skip the first two or three pages of link farms.
Click to expand...
Wow. Really??

Just...wow.

We live on different planets, you and I.
 
Jim_R said:
Wow. Really??

Just...wow.

We live on different planets, you and I.
Click to expand...

Here's the same search term, same computer, same Chrome browser. One opened in an incognito window, one not. If I logged into Google, I'd get a completely different adset as well. This is without even touching the ehow and wikianswer farms.


2ryoy6v.png

rw2xsn.png
 
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Those results aren't bad at all, actually. My problem with Google Search is that it's getting to be too much trouble to actually get it to search for the terms I enter. They could remove 90 percent of my frustration by allowing Verbatim to be the default mode, but that wasn't possible the last time I checked.

Maybe I just search for a lot of oddball stuff, but when I was using Google Search, at least half the time -- probably more -- it would return the results for what it thought I was looking for, along with the little sentence along the lines of, "We are displaying the results for X. Click here to see the results for Y."

If I wanted to search for X, I would have searched for X. Why are you showing me the results for Y?

The other thing that irks me is the annoying question, "Did you mean to search for Z?" Then I find myself talking to the screen. "No, I didn't mean to search for Z! I searched for X! Why do you want to give me Y and Z?" The stemming and synonym results also seem harder and harder to get around without going into Verbatim mode -- and even in that mode, it isn't perfect.

What I want is a search engine that just returns the result for the query that I type in the box. That's all. Not what it thinks I meant to type, not "corrected" spellings of what I typed, not synonyms of what I typed, and not things related to what I typed. Is that really too much to ask?

Like I said, if selecting full-time Verbatim mode were an option, I might actually go back to Google. But it's just too much bother to have to go through three extra steps just to get it to search for what I asked it to.

As for the ads, they heavily weight user data now, as opposed to contextual relevance. But it's backfiring in a big way.

When I searched for information about how to weld a fuel tank some months ago, I was getting ads for fuel, heating fuel, diesel fuel, tanks, tankers, tank trucks, welders (both people who weld and machines used to weld), welding rods, welding gases, welding flux, and so forth for several weeks, every time I went on a page that featured Adsense ads -- including my own sites -- none of which are about welding!

That's when I understood why my own Adsense CTR and revenues had plummeted. They're selecting the ads based on user tracking, not context relevancy. That's just plain idiotic. It assumes (among other things) that I am more interested in something I searched for last week than the site I am looking at now, and that no one else used my computer to search for something which is of no interest to me.

So what we have is all this data mining and user tracking going on, with all the privacy questions inherent in that, being used to select ads that are less relevant. So it's a fail both ways.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
Those results aren't bad at all, actually. My problem with Google Search is that it's getting to be too much trouble to actually get it to search for the terms I enter. They could remove 90 percent of my frustration by allowing Verbatim to be the default mode, but that wasn't possible the last time I checked.
Click to expand...

This help?

http://www.google.com/advanced_search
 
So, if Google's results are heavily skewed now, what is the better choice now?
 
SCCutler said:
So, if Google's results are heavily skewed now, what is the better choice now?
Click to expand...

None of them are perfect, of course. I have different preferred search engines for different purposes.

The biggest problem with search engines in general, in my opinion, is the "disambiguation" that attempts to guess what I'm really trying to search for, rather than simply returning the results for my query. I hate it. In my opinion, it's just another ill-conceived usability "feature" that assumes that users are too stupid to know what they are searching for -- and more and more search engines are implementing it.

That being said...

My current favorite search engine is Duck Duck Go. Yahoo! and Ask are also okay for general searches. Google is best only when I specifically am looking to purchase a product or service, because everyone and their brother advertises on Google. So to put it another way, when I'm actually searching for ads, Google wins.

But Duck Duck Go recently displaced Yahoo! as my current favorite, for a number of reasons. That the settings allow me to turn off the disambiguation and leave it turned off is a big one. But there are many other user-definable settings, as well, including privacy settings that aren't buried six pages deep like Google's are. It's also fast and clean, and is lighter on the ads than most others.

For searches on obscure topics, Yippy is usually my first choice; and for searches where I want to be sure of quality results, Mahalo is my search engine of first choice. With Mahalo, it'll be hit or miss whether any results are returned, but whatever is returned (if anything) usually will be good stuff.

-Rich
 
weilke said:
Hey, I pay good money to skew those results, don't you go anywhere :rofl:
Click to expand...

Apparently, Google tells us to go skew ourselves, rather then being skewed by someone else.

My current favorite search engine, DuckDuckGo, has some interesting stuff hiding under their "More" button, including a discussion about how search habits affect search results when using Google. DDG is, of course, a competitor to Google; so I wouldn't take this page as gospel:

http://dontbubble.us/

However, because I suspect that Google's legal team outnumbers DuckDuckGo's by a factor of thousands, and because I doubt that DuckDuckGo enjoys being sued, I suspect that some of what they allege, at least, is true.

Interesting stuff. I didn't find it until well after I'd walked away from Google Search and switched to DuckDuckGo, or else I might have done so sooner.

-Rich
 
You got _exactly_ the same set of results in those two screenshots, except for the "preferred" results in the shaded section at the top and the sidebar on the right (at least for the first three hits, which are the only ones visible in the first screenshot).

I don't need to don a tinfoil hat to simply ignore the shaded and sidebar stuff, and just look at the normal results.

ElPaso Pilot said:
Here's the same search term, same computer, same Chrome browser. One opened in an incognito window, one not. If I logged into Google, I'd get a completely different adset as well. This is without even touching the ehow and wikianswer farms.


2ryoy6v.png

rw2xsn.png
Click to expand...
 
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Today, a co-worker cracked a rib, so I volunteered to take him to the Urgent Care facility 2 miles away. Wanted to get a map just to make sure of the directions. Bing just gave me a bunch of ads for insurance companies when I entered "Urgent Care Stamford". Google gave me a screen full of YP pages mostly pointing to places in Yonkers, over 50 miles away.

Stupid!
 
AuntPeggy said:
Today, a co-worker cracked a rib, so I volunteered to take him to the Urgent Care facility 2 miles away. Wanted to get a map just to make sure of the directions. Bing just gave me a bunch of ads for insurance companies when I entered "Urgent Care Stamford". Google gave me a screen full of YP pages mostly pointing to places in Yonkers, over 50 miles away.

Stupid!
Click to expand...

I suspect that because of routing factors, Google picked up your location as Yonkers, and returned the results accordingly.

At my last place, my ISP had some problems that they worked around by re-routing Internet traffic through Binghampton -- 50 miles away and in a different county -- while repairs were being made. This worked fine and avoided any outage, but it threw off Google's geolocation. Google believed that I was in Binghampton (it would show in the left column) and skewed my results accordingly.

Now it's true that I have browser geolocation disabled, so all Google has to go on geolocation-wise is IP-based information. But that's irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. The problem, in my opinion, is that Google is weighting user information -- in this case location -- in deciding what results to show, rather than simply returning the results for a query.

Some would argue that this makes the service more useful. I disagree. There are many times when I'm looking for information that's relevant to some other location (for example, if I'm looking something up for my elderly parents). So if I search on a specific term in a specific location, I would appreciate results based on my query, rather than results skewed by whatever method Google used to attempt to sniff out my present location.

-Rich
 
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AuntPeggy said:
Today, a co-worker cracked a rib, so I volunteered to take him to the Urgent Care facility 2 miles away. Wanted to get a map just to make sure of the directions. Bing just gave me a bunch of ads for insurance companies when I entered "Urgent Care Stamford". Google gave me a screen full of YP pages mostly pointing to places in Yonkers, over 50 miles away.

Stupid!
Click to expand...
Maybe so, but there might also be a better way to retrieve the data you're looking for. If you're looking for a map or directions, I'd suggest a map search instead of a text search. Open a map for where you are and scale it to the size you want to search (I just punch in the zip code where I'm at, then click the map thumbnail that appears on the search results and zoom it to the level I want). Then, type what you're looking for in the search field...in your case, "urgent care".

You'll get results for your map view, and from there you can just click on the map marker for the result you're interested in to get directions. (And if you don't like the results in that view, you can move / rescale your map view and it will repopulate with new results dynamically.)
 
Google is really no different than most media companies: it's main function is to generate revenue (either through ads or referrals), and it does that by collecting as much data as it can from you. It then skews the results in a way that it thinks is "relevant", and assuming you click on one of the links, it tracks that and uses the data to sell advertisers on how "relevant" it's results are (and therefore how targeted the ads are). That's the strategy....

Fact is, like most media companies, it really doesn't care how accurate or useful the results really are as long as they are relevant enough to enable them to sell ads. The search engine can freely ignore your search terms and substitute other data (such as implied location or search history) if it thinks it will provide results you will click on (which would mean the results are relevant, and G can promote such to the ad providers). Look at your local mass media outlets - they really don't care if Rush Limbaugh (or Rachael Maddow if you prefer) is truthful or accurate as long as people listen to/watch the program, which generates ratings, which the media outlet can translate into advertising sales.
 
I use many of the Google services.
I really don't see the big deal about giving them a cell phone number. I gave them mine maybe a year ago, have never gotten and ad via text or anything at all that would make me think they did anything with the number.

If you want to use their services, it is their sandbox. Give them what they want, or stop using them.
 
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