I’ll be deleting the most interesting link in this post in a couple days but for my eight loyal readers I will share this deep dive into what I look for online. I found my search history when Google sent me some info to reassure their hundreds of Google dependents that their search history function is not intended to make them vulnerable to predatory businesses and the forces of darkness. I wasn’t particularly concerned about that. I spend very little time going places that embarrass me and I’m pretty resistant to commerce and paranoia online.
This nonchalance was not always the case. Ten to fifteen years ago I did visit a sampling of porno sites partly for natural curiosity and partly for prurient interest. I was mostly repelled and incredulous by what I found in them. I learned a lot about how much personal indelicacy some people were willing to share online either voluntarily or through trickery. There is a reason that Hollywood spends millions of dollars to shoot sex scenes with hundreds of techies at hand to make it look appetizing. I doubt if any of the people sharing their home sex movies understood the potential future reach of the Internet’s technology and anticipated that it could one day identify them based on a massive database of faces. “Jimmy, I just did a data base search on Mommy’s face and OMG look at this!!!!”
Back in the day I typically erased my search history after skulking through porno sites. I haven’t bothered to erase this history for better than a decade.
The last search of mine that sounds anything like porno was a quest for people doing “naked cartwheels.” I wanted to draw a humorous graphic for my last column in the Reader before hanging up my pulpit to run for the School Board.
As I said I’ll erase my search history in a couple of days. I have no idea if it opens up more ways for meanies to mess with me. But I’m just a small fly in the ointment now, not a President with a leaky ****hole above his chin. Take a brief look at the stuff I’ve looked up on Google.
Sorry. I deleted this. All heck broke loose on my computer after I published this. It may be coincidence But I am not inclined to take chances.
