Monday, July 2, 2007

twitter.com After Google changed his language preference without asking, a Dutch businessman couldn't renew his virus-protection subscription.

Globetrotting net users might be familiar with this feature: Online services increasingly check from which IP address you are checking in and decide to change your language without asking. While this is the beginning of Web services starting to think for their users, the future does not look bright.

I have already gotten used to Google upgrading the adult filtering of my imaging search without asking. But when I happen to log in in Brussels, Google also invariably thinks I should do all my searches in French. Fortunately, when you change your preferences back to English three or four times, Google seems to learn -- until the next time I log in from a non-English IP address, that is.

Dutch businessman Marc van der Chijs reported on Twitter an experience that went even further. He had to renew his subscription to Symantec and did so from Shanghai. He then discovered that the company preferred to speak to him in Chinese. With the help of his Chinese wife he could figure out what to fill in where, since the renewal page did not want to change into English. Even then, the renewal procedure failed three time. "Turns out Symantec does not accept Chinese credit cards in China," he sights at Twitter.

Getting things right is not easy in a non-that-flat world.

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