I have a link on my blogroll to www.gizmodo.com, but sometimes I go there via Google, and I was annoyed today when (eventually) I noticed that I was reading German text, and the contents were different from the original. I really hate this patronizing matching of British ads and American blogs, in this case, to my perceived interests.

At least it wasn’t a machine translation. Micro Persuasion reported on this a couple of weeks ago:

bq. Nick Denton writes in that VNU and Gawker Media have struck a licensing deal that will take Gizmodo into Europe with an eye towards becoming the ultimate European destination for everything gadget, gizmo, and cutting-edge consumer electronics-related. VNU will provide its local presence and its network of bloggers as well as its knowledge of the local consumer electronic players in Europe.
Gizmodo’s content will be translated from English into 6 additional languages, then augmented with local coverage for each market.

You can check it out in French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Italian.