If Google's ability to discern my interests for ads is as bad as is their ability to discern my interests for news, then I would not be surprised.
I have never been aware of listening to any music by the band "Foo Fighters". I've almost certainly heard their songs in passing, but never in a context that gave me the name of the band.
A friend on Facebook posted a link to a YouTube video called "Dave Grohl brings kid on stage in Kansas City to rock out", in which Grohl, who is apparently the lead of the Foo Fighters, invited a kid from the audience at a Foo Fighters concert up to play a song, and I watched this video. (The kid asked to play a Metallica song, which Grohl and the Foo Fighters knew and played, so I still have not knowingly listened to any Foo Fighters music!)
Google has latched onto this and decided that I am interested in Dave Grohl news. Every time I go to Google News, for the last several weeks, the top of the "recommended by your interests" section is a story about Grohl or the Foo Fighters. Even though I hit the "show fewer stories like this" link for most of them, still they come.
Furthermore, they are almost all negative stories. The one thing they have of me showing any interest in Grohl and/or Foo Fighters, that video of the kid on stage, was a positive thing. But what they are giving me is a parade of stories about Grohl screwing over current or former bandmates, Grohl misbehaving while drunk, etc., from what appear to be trashy gossip publications. Yet a bit of research shows that Grohl is apparently actually a nice guy, well regarded. If I click the link to tell Google to not show me anything else from one of these trash publications...it obeys and just turns to other one to find Grohl gossip for me.
What the heck, Gooogle!?
