My Sketchy Web History

In the days when Google opaquely records all my browsing history on the Web, it is only natural to be sort of look over one’s shoulder before visiting a, um, questionable site. Outside of the usual risks of being exposed as the sex offender you really are on the inside, the other problem is being labeled incorrectly in everybody’s personalization efforts.

Take my example. I recently landed a cushy, kick-ass gig at Kosmix Corp. (www.kosmix.com) as a product manager for the health vertical (www.righthealth.com); more about the gig later, but part of the job is to know the health/wellness space inside out. Naturally, this involves trolling the Web actively looking for results for queries such as “untreated herpes”, “18 and pregnant”, both real-world queries gleaned from a data source that I wont disclose.

Suffice it to say, then, that the other part of the job involves throwing up more often than a coked-out Kate Moss during a purging period.

Since the health space is targeted at the baby boomer types as well as women in their thirties and up, I’ve also had to sign up for a lot of services that could be considered a question mark in a 24 year old straight man’s “web career”. If you look at my del.icio.us list, you’d be surprised to find sites related to pregnancy, infant growth charts, herpes and diabetic foot infections. One word: yum.

I’m not proud to say that today I signed up for www.babycenter.com. Is it sad that I thought a couple of minutes before specifying the “due date” of my as-yet unborn baby? Is it pathetic that I paused carefully for a second, then checked off the box that asked: “Are you trying to become pregnant?”.

No, it ain’t. If people can eat bugs on national TV in pursuit of the American dream, I sure as hell can become preggers online.