A few weeks ago I received the following transcription from google voice: “Hey boox meet on your number is 94 and it’s in 10 minutes. Our bye.”

The important part of this message was my order number at the pizza place, which Google did transcribe properly, however the first two words of the transcription, “Hey boox”, caught my attention.  My wife actually said “Hi hon”, but that isn’t what matters.  What matters is this: Google voice doesn’t misspell words when it does transcriptions (at least, it never has for me, and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t).  So why did Google think my wife said “Hey Boox?”.

Boox is my nickname.  I have received emails that began “Hey Boox”, and I have signed emails “Boox”.  However, I haven’t been known as Boox in three years.  Doing a search for boox on my gmail account tells me that I have not received or sent a message containing the text Boox since July 2007.

As far as I can tell, the only way Google Voice would know to transcribe my message as “Hey Boox” is if it has read my emails as far back as 2007 (and farther).   I don’t mind, as we all know  Google isn’t Evil, and this isn’t surprising, Google’s gmail privacy notice says in part “Google maintains and processes your Gmail account and its contents to provide the Gmail service to you and to improve our services” Voice being one of their “services”.

This does serve as a reminder that Google’s services are fully integrated.  I’m sure voice provides a better service because it has access to my email.

Still, it does feel a little … strange.

//michael.