IT’S A MANN’S WORLD
point, even searched for it on the
internet—we’d decided to stay there
BECAUSE WE DROVE PAST. How
could Google possibly know we were
staying there? How had they
determined we were staying for one
night, when we ourselves hadn’t
even made that decision? After ten
full minutes of paranoid panic, I
deduced the innocent truth: when
we checked in, we had provided my
email address. Whilst we were out for
dinner, the landlady had emailed us
a receipt. And Gmail’s AI had read
that receipt, and then helpfully/
scarily cross-pollinated the data over
to my linked Google Maps account.
I forgot about Woodstock until last
week, when a friend referred me to a
relatively obscure page of Google’s
services (myaccount.google.com/
purchases), upon which one can
peruse a years-long list of all the
purchase receipts your Gmail has
received. Scanning through my
receipts, I was taken aback at just
how much a total stranger
could surmise about me. My
recent purchases
include: some £
seats for Hamilton, a
portable heater, a
subscription to a craft
beer box, an imitation
diamante kitten
collar, a fire-guard,
five Thomas The
Tank Engine films
on Amazon, and,I thought I was. But it turns out
that knowing something and
viscerally experiencing it are two
very different things.
The first episode that gave me
pause for thought took place on a
fly-drive holiday in 2015. My wife
and I spontaneously stopped in
Woodstock, New York; the Catskills
town famous for its connection to
the legendary music festival. As we
later discovered, “Woodstock” 1969
actually took place on a rural site 60
miles away, but no matter: we were
heading north anyway, and had
stumbled upon an appealing B&B.
We paid cash to the landlady, filled
in a pen-and-paper booking form,
and headed out for dinner. We
fancied Japanese, so I opened
Google Maps, typed “noodles” and
was duly directed to Yum Yum
Noodle Bar (which, if ever you find
yourself in Woodstock for the night,
I recommend. Try the curry
coconut broth.) Then, things got
weird. I re-opened Google
Maps, for a suggested route
back to our B&B,
and noticed
there was now
a little footnote
floating over it:
“Reservation—
September 6–7.”
This freaked me out.
We hadn’t booked the hotel
online—it was an impulse
decision. We hadn’t, at any
18 • AUGUST 2019