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There is something even more sinister happening on the internet. "It" happened to me.

When it comes to passwords, I don't do anything where if someone cracked my password they would be able to access any important private information about me and/or my family. I don't communicate any important information via e-mail, and I don't do Facebook or Twitter or any other social network interaction.

But, my problem is regarding what Google did last week.

My wife looked at our bank statement online. She noticed a charge for about $40. She was stunned that I had applied to and got charged for YouTube TV service. I did not.

Okay, maybe I did, in a way. What I did was to apply for a "trial" service of YouTube. And I expected that I could go and use that trial service to see if it was worthwhile getting it to replace my cable TV service. After browsing through the YouTube lineup, I decided immediately that I did not want that awful and limited service. So, I did not complete by trial subscription. So I thought.

Then, last week came the surprise via the Google charge on our credit card account. I HAD NEVER EVEN ENTERED ANY ACCOUNT INFORMATION in order to authorize the charges. But, the bank account showed a "recurring" monthly charge of $40, with last week being the first time the payment was drawn automatically.

Like I said, I had NEVER entered any account information to authorize any charges.

So, I called Google CS. The rep (based in the Phillipines, he told me) said that, the account information had very likely been obtained from information stored on my computer from previous use of the credit card where I had authorized "other" services (didn't have to be from Google) to use my credit card for payment. So, it turns out that Google had done a scan of my computer information to find a credit card that could be used to pay for the YouTube TV service. Like I said, I never did authorize any payment and I had not even entered any information into Google to authorize the recurring payments.

Google took the liberty of using, WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION, account information which had been recorded on my computer from some previous payment which I had made to "other" services. That was a huge surprise, and I was very angry that Google could be so invasive. I never trusted Google before, and I trust them even less. However, that taught me a lesson about making any kind of payments online to any other service. And I won't do it again. If my account information is being retained on my computer without my knowing it, I don't want to risk it being used in the future without authorization.

If I want to set up any kind of recurring payments, I'm going old school and doing them directly via the bank and not some online service. But now, I'm rethinking even that procedure, since, if I can view account information via online banking, what is there to say that even that information is not being recorded and "made available" for future "unauthorized" purchases.

Needless to say I called Google and cancelled the YouTube service which I had NOT really purchased, and that first payment was going to be refunded. The only good thing I can say regarding the whole experience is that, the rep was very kind and thoughtful, and I appreciate HIS service.

Lesson learned. Never again.