Riding home from New York on the train yesterday I noticed something interesting. The signs on the train always catch my eye for the first few minutes. They range from scotch ads to airlines and investment firms. But this time it was different. It was four different ads for Google. Google has been hitting the airwaves on TV a lot lately, so I figured this would be along those lines. You know, look at all you can do with the Google suite of sites and platforms.
But when I took a closer look, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. It was basically a description of cookies… what they are, why they are used and best of all, how to delete them. The gist was that cookies help a site remember you so you don’t have to start all over each time you visit.
I have to admit, I felt a little weird standing up, walking over and snapping a picture of the sign, but I did not care. I had to do it. And it’s not THAT uncommon these days, I guess.
I had to get a picture because of all the times I have had to explain cookies to people and then how to delete them. Not only did I want to steal some of their wording, but I thought it was a fascinating commentary on the current internet climate.
If you are on YouTube or Google you probably have seen the overt messages about the upcoming privacy policy changes. Or maybe you’ve read one of the countless articles retweeted on Twitter recently that explain and comment on it. If you have not, you should read up. There are going to be a lot more eyes on your information, particularly your Gmail, that you will want to be aware of.
Whether the new Google changes are good or bad, I am not here to comment on. I just thought that it was an amazing case of education, proactive damage control and PR to help deal with the potential backlash that will come when this all goes live.
Cookies are one of those things that many people don’t fully understand and instantly instill an aura of distrust. It’s funny that a word like “cookie”, that had always been such a happy term, has morphed into the poster child of the Big Brother Era.
No comments:
Post a Comment