An unplanned post about Google (Friend Connect this time)

The disappearance of my Google Friend Connect gadget from the right-hand column was not part of my plans to de-Google my life: after all, it took me a while to amass the followers there (I think I had a mere 18, but some of them were friends).
   From my Google Dashboard, I noticed there were Friend Connect entries for all sorts of things, including blogs I had deleted. And, oddly, there were two entries for this domain: one for the main site, and one for the blog.
   Naturally, I deleted the entries for the dead blogs (which I never entered anyway), and since there were two for jackyan.com, I took out the one for the site and retained the one for the blog. Logical, but wrong.
   Now that the gadget has disappeared from the right-hand column, the penny dropped: the one for the site was one I manually set up, and was the account used for the gadget formerly on the right. The one for the blog was one that Google “helpfully” put in to Friend Connect.
   This is precisely the point I and others have been driving home for weeks on this whole Google mess: if we have not asked for it, don’t do it.
   I never asked for any sites to appear in Google Friend Connect except the ones I added. Granted, it was still my action that killed the gadget at right, and lost me those followers, but Google’s practice of trying to trick you into using its services (‘Look, you’ve already signed up to them’) sure didn’t help me.
   So to my 18 followers, my apologies. Hindsight is a great thing. And it seems I have even fewer connections with Google now—even if it was unintentional. (I’ll be deleting the unrequested blog entry in Friend Connect, too, as it has no followers.)


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