Apparently, Google has "improved" its Blogger blogging platform. It seems to be doing some sort of location detection so that if you're accessing the Internet from Japan, the comments pages of Blogger blogs show up in Japanese — even if the blog and its comments are all in English. For example, instead of:
Mr. Smith comments...we see:
Mr. Smithさんのコメント...Not a fatal problem, but annoying and unhelpful. Which is usually the result of "features" and "improvements" that presume to know what the user really wants.
The worst proponent of this kind of "assistance' I have found is microsoft. After determining that my ISP is originating from Korea, I automatically directed to their Korean language pages. As I speak Korean, it is not a linguistic problem for me, but it must be damned annoying and frustrating for people who don't know Korean.
What IS frustrating is that the Korea software versions are always one or two versions behind the English releases. Once you get sucked into the Korean pages of microsoft, it is amazingly difficult to get back to the English section.
As you say, it's the product of people trying to outthink the user.
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