About Commenting

If you’re on my blogroll, I read you as regularly as you post. If you have a blog with Blogspot, though, my comments on your posts will not go through.  Blogspot, which is owned by Google, requires enabling 3rd party cookies for tracking, and/or requires tracking across all personal devices before they will allow someone to comment on one of their platforms. Anyone who doesn’t agree is barred from commenting, without explanation. The comments just evaporate.

These permissions are major privacy violations, which is why I don’t enable them myself.  They allow Google to tailor what users see on their computers to Google’s requirements and marketing needs. This has an effect on everything a user sees online, and everything Google offers to that user in searches, news articles, and a whole variety of choices Google prefers to make for the user.  The damage this kind of monopoly can do is enormous, and is not something I am willing to cooperate with.

I’m sorry that Google, which once made “don’t be evil” as its core value, has  made these decisions. Google removed that values statement in 2018 because, I guess, it had become all too obvious that not being evil was no longer a driver, but had become an impediment to Google’s goals. And I’m very sorry that I can’t comment on interesting posts written by bloggers and other users who are tied to a Google platform.