Google's Gmail reads all your emails: Microsoft

Status
Not open for further replies.
mojo

mojo

Forerunner
Hello Friends,

Do you know this till now?

Google goes through every single word of personal Gmail messages and uses that information to sell and target ads. This is what a report by GfK Roper study, commissioned by Microsoft claims.

The report said that 70 percent of consumers don't know that major email providers routinely engage in the practice of reading through their personal email to sell ads — something that 88 percent of people disapprove of once they are informed.

The GfK Roper study said that Google even goes through emails from non-Gmail users to generate advertising income. "Gmail goes through all incoming email messages, from any email provider, and sells ads based on the content of those emails — a practice that nearly 90 percent of Americans agree should end," the study added.

The report said that 70 percent of consumers don’t know that major email providers routinely engage in the practice of reading through their personal email to sell ads.

Read more @ Source

 
Yes, I suppose a lot of people know this Google even sends out a monthly privacy report of the data that has been collected. Its not secret.

You do realize that all your Google searches are also used to "sell ads" .. now tell me whats contains more private info your Emails or your Google Search History :P
 
But i didn't know this till now. Is it mentioned in the Terms and conditions which i never read and accepted?

Not a problem even if they read but just didn't know that they will read everyone's mail particularly.

Thank for the info @dexBG.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Anyone who uses Gmail knows this is true, the ads change based on our incoming and outgoing emails.
 
mojo said:
But i didn't know this till now. Is it mentioned in the Terms and conditions which i never read and accepted?

Not a problem even if they read but just didn't know that they will read everyone's mail particularly.

Thank for the info dexBG.
Click to expand...

Google has decent privacy policy .. they use your data but remove all personally identifying markers like IP address, name etc.

For eg.
Male, 25yrs , from Delhi bought a Microwave from Flipkart. is the kind of information Google would have from your emails ..
They read email in the sense that a crawler will search for keywords in your mail database.

If you use Gmail then you have already accepted their Terms & Conditions .. and its mentioned there quite clearly.

AFAIK Google also totally anonymizes the any data 3 months after its collected ..


Its the price of using a free service ..
 
It is a machine reading it, and generating an advert. stream based on that. Nothing to worry about.
 
Even Google Now cards popup based on your search history or if some package has been shipped from Amazon and you get an email from Amazon.
Also, I always use Google Navigation. Within one week of use, it learned about where I would be going. So, when I launch it in the morning, it will show office in top of the list of places, in the evening first it used to show home. Later, I started going to another place in between to pickup a friend. Then it started showing that place.
I feel Google is slowly evolving into a giant machine which uses humans to increase its knowledge. :)
 
Google even can measure size, color & make of your underwear if you are using android phone, don't be surprise if on one fine morning you got message from Google that your underwear is about to died & time to replace it & will suggest you few brand from there PPC advertisements :P
 
In a way some of the targeted advertising could help people. Suppose, you want to buy something online and you get OOS email and based on keywords in the mail, google inserts an ad in sidebar saying that item is in stock in some other online store. If you buy from that store you get your item instead of waiting and google gets paid money for referring you to the store. It may not be relevant in India, but it would be in huge markets like america where online stores are a lot more.
 
That is pretty much common, Gmail's automated engine does that, no real person reads it, so privacy is not lost. It only picks out important words like Restaurants, malls, corporate and matches with its ads network and displays it. It doesn't associate the ads with real person or even the data. No problem using Gmail till a 3rd party real person reads it.
 
Do consumers seriously think anything in life is free ? The price for that free email account and service is, Google will build a profile and target you with ads they think you may be interested in.

Personally I am happy with the unobtrusive google ads rather that In your face experience that other services offer. And has everyone forgotten the 5Mb and 10Mb days of M$hit and Yawhatshisname? They thought you were suckers to be milked every which way possible. If M$hit had its way, you would be paying for every click you did on the net, with all of it funneling into them. They tried hard for several years to make proprietary system and protocols rather than go with open systems.

Google wants to read my mail and help me with my life, and at the same time make a little money off it, good for them, I would rather have that, then the 5 Mb days.
 
MS is playing this email reading card for now. In the forseeable future, lets see what it does and whether it backtracks :P

Some s*** site had mentioned that you can be tracked by advertisers and I was thinking, if they were so desperate to do so, they might be the CIA/NSA :P
 
If you use a free service, you're not the customer, you're the product. You will be delivered to the real customers, i.e. advertisers in the case of Google.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom