Citizen Tom

I was at work talking to an associate.  I have one post that has done extraordinarily well, PRESIDENTIAL PROS AND CONS: JOHN MCCAIN.   Since we were talking about politics and the Internet, I decided to brag a little bit and show my friend where the post ranked on Google.  I used the following word in the search expression:  John mccain pros cons.  Surprisingly, my post came up second in the list.  Wow!  That was even better than I expected.

I clicked on the post.  Then the Good Lord decided to punish me for my vanity.  There was an advertisement right under the title of my post.  See. 

What?!!!!  Since I don’t advertise anything, I was shocked.  What was that nonsense doing there?  So investigated, and I discovered Google is playing a trick on us bloggers. 

When I got home I tried to display the web page using the same search expression.  No luck.  Then I cleared all the temporary files, cookies and history and tried the search again.  BINGO!  Apparently, the ad displays only the first time the post is displayed.  So bloggers do not realize what is going on.  How tricky!

We are not web masters, but my friend and I decided to view the source.   Apparently, with a little help from a firm that knows how to advertise on blogs, Google has arranged a javascript that inserts unwelcomed content on the webpages of blog.  We provide the content, and Google and their greedy friends reap profits – even when we have no intention of advertising.

The profit, however, is not what bothers me.  With its search engine, I concede that Google provides a useful service.  What I don’t like is having Google alter the content of my webpage.  No blogger should appreciate having somebody else’s content inserted without their permission. 

Where does it stop?   If the big corporate Internet corporations can add stuff to our web pages, then they can also alter and delete stuff.  That is dangerous.