Dennis Forbes has a nice line in Google criticism, or Google-cheerleading criticism anyway:
While Google is undoubtedly a technical superstar that is executing ideas absolutely brilliantly, it is remarkable seeing such admiration for what is essentially an internet advertising company. Where was the love for DoubleClick?
I recall this most often when their employees occasionally forget that the term unsolicited commercial email
might apply to email from them… even email about something they’re sure I’d really like! Every time I post about this I hope I can ride a wave of Internet scandal, but no one ever notices. Nevertheless:
- in July 2003 Google sent me unsolicited email to try and get me to let them crawl one of my websites;
- in March 2005 they really needed to check again (see entry); and
- in fact, that very same month they needed to make one final plea (see entry).
And now they’re bothering the freedesktop.org mailing list administrators, which is better than bothering me of course, but even so.