I signed up to Google's Adsense a few days ago, and received an email a few days later welcoming me. It was in Chinese.

Somewhere, the Google system has recognised the fact that I'm in Taiwan and decided that it should therefore only communicate with me in Chinese. This is a pity as I don't read Chinese.

So I sent a complaint, and they have responded with the standard letter. This time in English. So, I clicked the link and was taken to their terms and conditions. In Chinese.

I'm sure there's a way around this, but that's not the point.

The point is that Google's business model is built around the idea that all of us are different, and their job is to collect data about us which enables them to target advertising more effectively. They want to only show ads to us that are interesting and useful to us.  And, in my case, they're failing miserably.

Presumably they're trying to extend a courtesy, based on assumptions they're making about me because of where I happen to be sitting. But they're not actually collecting any data about who I am, they're not recognising that people travel.

When you think about it, this is rather odd. The whole point of the internet is that geography doesn't mean anything any more. There's a famous book about it called The World is Flat , and I had rather assumed (there we go with assumptions again) that Google would be at the forefront of making that thinking an inherent part of their business process.

But it's not part of their process, it's just part of their strategy. It seems that at some level the big picture has been lost and whichever person created that particular feature didn't get the point. Lower level people are implementing a policy without really thinking about what the values behind the policy are. This is not just Google's problem, it's endemic and rather undermines the whole principle.

For instance, in the Wikipedia page about The World is Flat, the book is described as "a national bestseller". National where? The author assumed that everyone reading the article was American, or so I assume. It's kind of ironic really. A book about globalisation is described with the assumption that the reader is not part of the globalised world.

So where's the great idea that comes out of this? I'm not really sure. But I have (at the moment) three more articles about Google on my list of things to write. Perhaps they should be paying me some kind of consultancy fee? That would be nice.

How's this? I have to bring this to the attention of the highest-placed person at Google I can find, and get as much publicity from it as possible. The media likes stories about Google as much as they like stories about globalisation. This could be a good way to attract traffic to my site - not that I'll be able to profit from it if I can't get any advertising up!

Suggestions on a postcard below please.