gmail (Google Mail & Ads) [was- Re: Fwd: [ILUG] Google Job ]

[Brian Foster]

  | Date: Sun, 4 Apr 2004 14:55:20 +0100
  | From: Colm Buckley <colm.buckley at gmail.com>
  | Subject: Fwd: [ILUG] Google Job
  | 
  | On Fri, 2 Apr 2004 19:51:19 +0200, Ramón Fallon <ramon at movora.com> wrote:
  |  > where's the ad at the bottom of the mail then?
  |  > or is it, if you pay for your gmail, they suppress it?
  | 
  | The ads don't appear on emails *sent* by GMail, they appear in the
  | GMail client as you read your email.  [ ... ]
  | This has amazing potential to creep people out, and I think it'll take
  | some getting used to, but in the end I hope that the users will be
  | smart enough to realise that their emails aren't being "read" any more
  | than their search queries are - it's just a simple matching of ads to
  | keywords.

 it -- or at least the poor explanations from the
 Google™ gmail team/management --- _is_ freaking
 people out:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1185534,00.html

  “Google is watching you
    ‥
   ``Google's Email raises Privacy Fears,'' declared the Indian
   Express, a headline echoed around this world last week after
   the company announced it is to offer a free email service
   called Gmail
   ‥
   the company revealed it would be employing technology that
   would search through the contents of its users' emails,
   thereby enabling it to place related adverts alongside
   those emails.
   ‥
   [For] privacy protection lobbyists the arrival of Gmail was
   the worst idea since the Pentagon dreamed up Total Information
   Awareness ‥ ([which] was subsequently abandoned due to the
   political outrage it caused.)‟

 there's a number of choice quotes, including some
 rather inept ones from Google's upper management.

 one (not from Google) which gives some food for
 thought is:

  “``It's one of the creepiest things I have ever heard of,''
   [a privacy consultant] told Wired magazine. ``Can I, as a
   pro-life person, for example, target email messages that
   seem to be about abortion?''‟

 good question.  the search engine does, e.g., accept
 ads for p0rn (e.g.).

cheers!
	-blf-
--
«How many surrealists does it take to    |  Brian Foster      Montpellier,
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