This is a bit of a rant. And not a really important one at that. But it seems to me that there are things companies do that impose themselves on their “customers” and, in this case, their “customers'” “customers.”  The culprit in this case is Technorati and, that one thing is:

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I feel responsible to those of you who take your valuable time to read my writings to make those writings worthy of your time and discuss issues that have the potential to make a real difference. In this case, all I did was change the URL of this blog (did you notice?). And to convince Technorati that it is still my blog (no, they can’t see the new URL, even though Google can) they require that I publicly post that random string of characters for them to find in my blog feed (not even directly on my blog!).

This means they are forcing me to post this for all of you to read also. So instead of just posting a cryptic post with those random characters, I thought I should at least explain. And no, I don’t have a good mystery novel in me, so while it might be a good start, I’ll leave it to more talented folks to go beyond the first sentence.

This is quite an imposition compared to Google. When they wanted proof of ownership, they asked for a tag in the blog’s header, something easily accomplished and invisible to RSS readers and human readers alike. It’s quite the comparison that Technorati wants me to impose their (rather outdated) technology on you, my readers.

The question I draw from this is along the same lines as my last post about Ford Motor Company: Are you being responsible to your customers if you are imposing on their relationship with their customers (when you can avoid it)?

It seems clear to me why, in the past few years, Technorati has lost trust as an on-line authority and Google has stepped in to fill the gap.

So, Technorati, can you read my code now?