By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

I live in Seattle, a city where people value their privacy. Unfortunately, there is a considerable degree of irony, even hypocrisy, in regards to all this obsession with privacy here in the land of Microsoft. Because as surely as the Internet has invaded our privacy, it has done so insidiously, and as of late, increasingly more openly so.

Here’s an example. As a writer, I hate interruption. To me, that’s an invasion of privacy. So imagine my surprise, and annoyance, while busily pecking away, or reading an article, or otherwise minding my own business, when a loud voice speaks up over my streaming online radio: “CONGRATULATIONS!” shouts the robotic male voice. “YOU HAVE JUST BEEN AWARDED A THOUSAND DOLLAR GIFT CERTIFICATE FROM WALMART!” (Provided, of course, that I give them all my personal information and buy a bunch of stuff with my Visa card). This came out of nowhere, and is even more intrusive than telemarketing or popups. So far (are you reading this, Microsoft?) there are no popup blockers I can find for such audio intrusions.

I tried clicking on the rudely flashing Walmart window on my free Juno.com home page. That is part of the problem, of course. If you use a free email service like Juno, you might, just might, have to tolerate such noise. So far Gmail has avoided this, or found a way to stop them, or maybe just hasn’t felt desperate enough to hand over yet more economic clout to Walmart. Here I went all the way to China a few years back (see my China memoir for more on this, if you’re interested, per the link below), and still couldn’t get away from Walmart, and now they’ve followed me home.

But that’s not all that’s bothering me today. Microsoft has also transgressed. This very morning, again while busy minding my own business, or at least minding all my Facebook friends’ interests, suddenly, in mid paragraph of a thought I absolutely had to get down, my computer took it upon itself to shutdown. Again, this came out of nowhere. One moment I’m busy writing an email, switching back and forth to my Word window, and the next moment Microsoft has walked into my computer world, and without so much as a hello, shut it down.

I sat staring in amazement and shock, actually, wondering what kind of fatal virus I had somehow just contracted. Fortunately, it was only my friendly Windows update advisor, busily looking after my best interests, with their latest Windows Update. No doubt this included something I might need, say, to prevent terrorists from stealing my hard drive, or converting my homepage into a porn processing center, or forcing me to listen to even more voice popups from Walmart.

It was a bad few moments, and fortunately all is well once more. Except that I can’t remember that all-important thing I was about to write down. All in all, maybe I’d prefer being interrupted by a telemarketer, irritating as that may be. At least I can let the answering machine handle it. Oh well. I suppose I could drive up to Lynnwood and shout at the Walmart manager up there. As if that would do any good.

Anybody have an email address or phone number for the Walton kids? If they have nothing better to do with their inherited billions than bother me, we need to talk. As for my neighbors over at Microsoft, don’t ask. I guess I could always blow another two grand and get an Apple.

Gene Ayres is a career writer, author and freelance journalist. His latest book is A Billion to One: An American Insider in the New China. He can be found at: www.geneayres.org.