Quote:
Originally Posted by Dylrob
I can't log into YouTube without linking my account to a gmail account? WTF! Why? To make it easier for them to mine personal information out of me for their ad service?!
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Google owns YouTube, so it's more accurate to say that logging into YouTube uses a Google account.
I use GMail, and also own and moderate a couple of Google Groups and created and manage a couple of Google Sites. The same ID logs me into all of them (and logs me out of them: If I log out of GMail, I'm logged out of the other services, too.)
Personally, I find it convenient, and the ad services don't bother me a bit. I have effective ad blocking installed in Firefox, so I don't see most web based ads, and while I could suppress the text ads in GMail, I don't. They are sometimes relevant, often whimsical, and always unobtrusive.
Like everyone else, I buy goods and services, and ads are one of the ways I discover stuff I might want to buy. The more carefully targeted the ad is, the better: it means I spend less time sorting through stuff I have no interest in to zero in on stuff I do care about.
I mostly don't worry about Google or anyone else building a profile of me, because it won't contain the stuff I really want to keep private.
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Dennis