I was hoping it was just an international hitch or even glitch but obviously it wasn’t. I was out of the country when Google changed the layout of their popular Google News page right around July 1. I saw it then and didn’t like it but I though that once I returned to the U.S. that G-News would reset back to the old layout. Yet that hasn’t happened and despite all the complaints, unfortunately it looks like it never will - there isn’t even a “click here for the original layout” button!

As of now I’m not a fan on the new one-column layout. I’m a “scanner” kinda of guy who likes to quickly browse stories and click when something catches my eye. The old page was great for that, this new one…well, not so great. At least not yet. The new layout is just too cluttered, busy and gadget-y.

I’ve also looked a Bing’s News which clearly gives a nod to the old Google layout but the design fails - I guess they like the one column idea also but now that Google’s using a single column they should switch to two!

With most product changes there is always user apprehension, but often after time there is acceptance. So I’m willing to give it a few more weeks.

I understand all the personalization options and I’ve tinkered around a little bit, but honestly I don’t want to “log in” to get my news nor do I really want to hand over to Google even more of my personal tastes so they can turn around and better sell to me.

And that’s a growing concern because online entities like Google know there’s endless gold in personal data and now they are doing their best to mine for it. I just wish it didn’t have to come at the expense of Google News.