There's just no pleasing me (or, if I ruled the Internet....) With a CREEPY UPDATE

I skim Google News several times a day and have iGoogle for a homepage on my laptop. I just went to GN and they changed it all around, my settings were gone and I was invited to “personalize” the page. The page WAS personalized. I don’t want this change, I want what I had back. CREEPY UPDATE: Google took a different approach with Google News accessed from my iGoogle homepage on the laptop. It added a "Metro Atlanta" news section. I guess I'll venture into the innards and turn some stuff off. Irony: I bitched about Google News asking me to "re-personalize" my page; and, now I'm bitching about iGoogle/Google News doing it for me.

I also skim AJC.com several times a day, sometimes from my phone. The default setting is “mobile view” which is really clunky and aesthetically unpleasing; so, I reset it to go to the “real” AJC.com. It does; but, if you click away to an article and go back, it sends you to the mobile page with no way to avoid it that I can find. I want it changed.

I read Leonard Pitts on the Miami Herald website. This morning it told me I have to register to read him (registering requiring me to input fake contact information). I haven’t done it yet, we’ll see.

A lot of sites, every now and again, interpose a “quick survey” pop up. Why can’t they put something in the cookie that tells them you’ve clicked no for the seventh time and it’s unlikely that you are going to click yes in the future? (Yes, NYTimes.com, I’m talking about you, quit it!)

Every week or so, Blogger forgets who I am, even though I’ve clicked “Remember me on this Computer.” (Sitemeter.com never remembers me.) Facebook tracks you everywhere you go even though you’ve told it not to (you believe the new privacy changes are real? I’ve got a bridge….). Maybe they could trade “keeping track of” personnel.

And while I’m ranting about Blogger, and yes, I know it’s free, why does it have the worst word processing program in the Universe? One of the reasons I’ve never been interested in trying Google Docs rather than the Office suite that I use is the Blogger interface. A plea to some kind-hearted Google engineer: please spend a couple of weeks of your 20% “free time” to fix Blogger. Thank you.

And thanks to any or all above the above-mentioned companies that hear and respond to my rants.