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

[Brian Foster]

  | Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 08:40:55 +0100
  | From: John McCormac <jmcc at hackwatch.com>
  | 
  | Brian Foster wrote:
  | > http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1185534,00.html
  | >   “Google is watching you
  | >    [... For] privacy protection lobbyists the arrival of Gmail was
  | >    the worst idea since the Pentagon dreamed up Total Information
  | >    Awareness ‥ [ ... ]‟
  | 
  | Is the main qualification to being a 'technology journalist' a complete
  | and utter gullibility?  [ ... ]

 and yer point is.... ??
 I do not know how the quoted claim --- to a certain audience,
 Google's gmail is the worst idea since TIA --- was measured,
 but it seems plausible.  (there may be some poetic license
 there too.  so what?)
 please note the claim does _not_ exclude what you talk about
 below (i.e., traffic and trend analysis).
 hence, I think I am missing what you are driving at .... could
 you explain, please?
 (this is NOT a troll .... I really am quite confused!)

  | >[ ... ] one [non-Goggle choice quote] 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?''‟
  | 
  | [ ... ]  Wired is always missing the big picture  [ ... ].
  | The big picture in this case is that the information derived from the
  | social networks and behaviours of the account holders is far more
  | valuable than just advertising revenue because it can identify trends,
  | fashions and new consumer groupings. Then with the move to fixed IPs,
  | and IPv6, search engines and the like are far more of a threat to
  | privacy than people even realise.

 again, seems plausible.
 but is that not missing the point of the quoted article?
 the article was reporting on breaking news.  it was not,
 and did not claim to be, an in-depth analysis.  it was of
 the form “Family Murdered in Home, Police Baffled‟ rather
 than on the causes of murder/crime.

 and the point has not actually missed people:  earlier
 today I saw a report (cannot recall where, sorry!) giving
 yet another inept Google upper management quote, where they
 failed to promise that people's browser/search records
 would not be collated with their gmail records, and also
 failed to promise those records would not be kept for a
 long time:  the sort of data-mining one can do with a
 large, long-term database of collated browsing and e-mail
 would seem to go far far beyond the concerns you have
 eloquently expressed above.  people who can get search
 warrants and court orders could have a field-day with that!

  | Regards...jmcc

 I am not (knowingly) disagreeing with any of yer points
 (which should not be read as I agree with them), but the
 impression I get is you read the article --- or at least
 the excerpts I quoted --- out of context?

cheers!
	-blf-
-- 
«How many surrealists does it take to    |  Brian Foster      Montpellier,
 change a lightbulb?  Three.  One calms  |  blf at utvinternet.ie      France
 the warthog, and two fill the bathtub   |    Stop E$$o (ExxonMobile)!
 with brightly-colored machine tools.»   |        http://www.stopesso.com