Google + Facebook = Doom
Google and Facebook are both among the most potentially evil corporations imaginable. If they’re not releasing your private information with ‘accidental’ security breeches, they’re picking and choosing what information they think you should know. Can you imagine if the two joined forces? What a nightmare! Here are my predictions for the horrors that would befall mankind should these unpleasant entities ever merge for Internet supremacy. The apocalyptic amalgamation shall be known as GooFace, and it will be decidedly unpleasant.
Privacy becomes non-existent.
Depending on how much information you’ve posted on Facebook, they already know your hobbies, interests, birthday, gender, who your family members are, who your best friend is, your marital status, and a slew of other pertinent details. Now, imagine Google knows all of these things, too. Want to know who a celebrity is messaging at 4 AM? Ask Google. Do a late-night search for a naughty adult subject? Your partner will receive a notification and your boss, pastor, and your great-aunt Ilene will all ‘like’ it. No, they won’t buy the line that you were searching for Dick’s Sporting Goods or a cat boarding facility, either.
Ads will become increasingly uncomfortable.
You thought the popups for free screensavers were bad? Please. Once Google and Facebook team up, you will be confronted with some of the most pertinent and embarrassing advertisements ever. After all, Facebook knows that you belong to several hidden, private groups such as ‘Incontinence Sufferers Anonymous’, ‘Pittsburgh S&M Underground’ and ‘Furry Fiction 18+’. Now imagine Google knows these things and gears the ads towards you based on those secret interests and hobbies.
Forget employment. Ever.
Human resources departments country-wide and in every industry imaginable are already trying to troll the Internet for every available scrap of dirt they can find on applicants. With a Premium Executive Account on GooFace, they will be able to see everything they want. Think you have nothing to hide? That your profile is as clean and wholesome as bunnies frolicking in a sun-drenched meadow? Well, take a look at your friends’ profiles, pictures of you, Foursquare logins at your house, and posts connected to you by using the @yourname function. You have no way of removing these things, other than untagging yourself and hoping no one else sees it. Current and potential employers will be able to see them all. Considering that people have been fired for something as bland as posing fully-clothed with a modest glass of wine, your days are numbered. Here’s a box. It’s your new home.
You had better be the most puritanically monogamous person on the planet.
Facebook already lets you type in the names of two friends and view their entire posting history together in a ‘relationship’ tab. This is already enough to make jealous partners raise eyebrows. Add in all of Google’s knowledge about your shared search histories, posts on message boards, and those secret LiveJournals you both have, and said jealous partner may just come after you with a steak knife. Harmless flirtation? All that blood doesn’t look harmless!
Privacy settings? What are those?
Think of all the friends you have in real life. Then compare the list to your friend list on Facebook. Other than crazy Uncle Gerald and his fourteen feral cats, who is missing? Virtually no one. Even now, pre-GooFace, just about everyone in the United States and large swaths of the world is on Facebook 24/7, feeding it more and more information. Why should Facebook keep that information private when it’s merged with Google? Did Associated Content keep it’s users information private when it was bought by Yahoo? Nope. You’ll get a new terms of service email and have to click to accept it the first time you log in after the merger. Want to deactivate the account? Okay, but the years of information you already fed it doesn’t magically disappear.
Forget surprises, it’s on your wall.
Did you just use Google to order your wife a gorgeous diamond tennis bracelet as a surprise gift? Facebook automatically posted the purchase and you’re not fast enough in deleting it. Thinking that you have a mistress, your soon-to-be-ex-wife has now changed her relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’ and has checked in at McShyster’s Divorce Lawyer. Her sister, mother, and that dweeb she dated in college all ‘liked’ it. Woe is you, my friend.
Everything becomes Facebook-compatible.
Have you noticed that some sites now automatically know when you’re logged into FB in another tab and encourage you to like their page or post a comment from your account? Google has indexed just about every web page on the planet, including that weird slash-fiction board you frequent and the site about serial killers that you find fascinating. For how long will there be multiple logins for all of these sites? How long until everyone knows that Lecter_Lvr69 is you, posting about the dismemberment technique of Albert Fish? Weirdo!
To quote George Carlin: think of all the additional crying there will be.
In the world of too much information, people will find out anything and everything they did not want to know. Everything from the real reason you had to take your vacation days in January (hemorrhoid surgery) to the arrest of your best-friend’s child (defecating in public) will be live-streamed directly into your Facebook feed. Everyone else can see it too. How to even respond? Is there an e-card to send to someone in the above scenarios? Do they even make such a thing?
Can you imagine it? Every Internet nightmare you’ve ever had will come alive with the formation of GooFace. Nothing will be sacred, chaos will rein, and there will be additional crying.
