I wrote to someone (someone spectacular) recently:
I remember when Hulu first came out, I was reading this book The Eighth Day of Creation and instead of my usual bedtime ritual of reading before sleep, I pulled a laptop into bed, and sheepishly watched an episode of Some Thing. It was the first time I ever had a laptop in bed before sleeping. I remember thinking "this changes everything", but with ominous overtones.
I wrote this from my Gmail account and was surprised to receive this email in my Yahoo account (I know… who uses Yahoo anymore? Me and my mom, that’s who. Hi, mom!):
I guess what’s surprising is how unsurprising this is. I searched my Yahoo and saw that I received emails from Hulu in 2019, but unsubscribed from updates from them and now, magically, they are checking in on me. It could all be coincidence, but I think there’s a good chance that as Google scrapes my emails to train some AI or target online advertising, they are sending out alerts to possible advertising partners. I mean, OBVIOUSLY they are, but I thought they maybe’d be a little more coy about the whole thing.
They should be a bit more like a friend trying to do some social engineering and hooking up two of their friends. “Oh, heyyyyy Wendy. How are you? Oh yeah, you’re reading a new novel? You know who else likes reading…”
Google. Be more coy. Flirt with me a bit. Geez.