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

[Dermot McGahon]

On Tue, 06 Apr 2004 20:52:40 +0100, John McCormac <jmcc at hackwatch.com> 
wrote:

> I've been somewhat wary about expressing some of my concerns about this
> because I don't want some technology journalist quoting me out of
> context.

Can understand that. It's practically bound to happen.

> The commercial datamining stuff out there is more far
> terrifying because almost everyone now has their own data footprint and
> the majority of people are probably totally unaware of kind of data that
> is available.

John, this is important I think. Could you elaborate a little on what is
available.

Obviously people posting to public forums, like this one, realise that
archiving is going on, but for private email, it should be temporary and
with proper legal controls.

My own take on targetted advertising, is that if I have to watch ads, they
might as well be targetted ones which suit me better. I would be less happy
to have the same technology used to, lets say, psychoanalyse me as part of
a recruitment process.

If you apply for any type of credit, all lending agencies share pretty much
all of their information to reduce their risks. People seem to accept that
as ok. I suppose it comes down to having a fair and reasonable amount of
privacy.


Dermot.
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