MS Targets Google With Another Smear Campaign 513
walterbyrd writes with news that Microsoft's PR department has started a campaign to convince Gmail users that Google reads your personal emails, referring to Google's automated method of scanning emails for keywords to generate supposedly relevant advertising.
"The gist of the scare campaign is that Google is a scary, scary company that reads your private emails in order to send you targeted ads. 'Even if you don't use Gmail, if you send email to someone who does, Google goes through those emails to generate advertising revenue too,' Microsoft warns in material sent to reporters. Oh, and Microsoft points out that six class-action lawsuits have been filed against Google over this issue, and asks people to sign a petition 'to tell Google to stop going through your personal email messages.'"
Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it a "Smear Campaign" if it's true?
Pretty "slanted" summary, but I guess this is Slashdot and the story is about Microsoft.
Now, who's more evil? Google or Microsoft? Hard to tell around here sometimes...
Truth (Score:1, Insightful)
The best kind of propaganda is true, and that's what this is. Obviously Microsoft neglects to tell you about all of their invasions of your privacy, but that doesn't make Google's any less true.
It's Quite Disingenuous (Score:5, Insightful)
Google does scan your emails for keywords. That information may be stored or revealed in any number of ways.
I think it's more than a bit disingenuous because the video has this person's eyes superimposed over your e-mail while mischievous music plays in the background. We all know that it's not a person reading the e-mails, it's software doing latent semantic indexing or some such algorithm.
They might not be lying but they are deceiving. Tell me how my Hotmail knows how to classify incoming e-mails as spam again? OH! You're running a Bayesian classification algorithm and building word statistics out of my e-mail?! They're reading my e-mails! Cue judging eyeballs over my e-mail with corny music.
Note: I'm not defending Google but I'm pretty sure that some type of software runs some sort of algorithm on your e-mails if you go through any reputable major e-mail provider. Hell, my debian postfix server is attached to a bunch of algorithmic open source programs to do just that!
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd rather non-invasive and targeted ads, than the annoying (and presumably irrelevant if MS aren't being hypocritical here) animated ones that you got on MSN, and now get on Skype.
You Are Quite Disingenuous (Score:0, Insightful)
Does your automated scanning and classification collect detailed statistics about conversation and subject matters to be used in a virtual dossier of all of your activities across the entire internet? The answer is obviously not.
But, we know well that this is EXACTLY what Google is doing. That it is automated is, to me even more scary than a person watching. That it's only used for ads(today), is annoying. That it could and likely will be used for God knows what in the future is the real disturbing bit.
A Smear Campaign Is a Smear Campaign (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it a "Smear Campaign" if it's true?
Well, it's not entirely true. I think most people consider the definition of reading to mean "looked" at [wiktionary.org] and that it is implicitly a human that is reading your e-mail in this case. The eyes superimposed in the first video imply this. What's actually happening is that your e-mail is being loaded into memory and parsed to build an index associated with some key that is associated with you and that is being stored. This data is then used to serve targeted ads. Do you really think that a person is involved at any point so far? Do you really think there's a Google employee looking over raw table data and rubbing one out when he sees that "ky jelly" is associated with user 57234765235 at a rate of 0.0054% of the time with a high precision value? Really? Show me a mail service provider that neither loads your e-mail into memory (alias "reads" it) nor stores it in a database and I'll show you extraterrestrial beings.
Pretty "slanted" summary, but I guess this is Slashdot and the story is about Microsoft.
Really? Where are Google's commercials of equal proportions? I guarantee you they would make for a story just like this.
Now, who's more evil? Google or Microsoft? Hard to tell around here sometimes...
Just because one evil is smearing another evil of less, equal or greater proportions doesn't make it not a smear campaign! This is exactly what it is! Disingenuous advertising meant to unduly spread uncertainty and deceit! How does Microsoft detect spam? The same damn way!
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would you want ads when reading your email at all? This seems to be horrible mental gymnastics to try to maintain "Google good!" fanboism.
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, it's funny how people will apparently put thought into the question "given the choice, would you rather we cut off your arm or cut off your leg?" without considering that perhaps a third option is infinitely preferable.
It IS a smear campaign... (Score:2, Insightful)
It IS a smear campaign. Tech Crunch and Read Write are trying to smear Microsoft for pointing out the truth.
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you want ads when reading your email at all?
I don't want, them, but I am willing to accept them because I am an adult, and I know that there is no Santa Claus. Corporations don't provide services out of the goodness of their heart. The ads pay for the "free" email, and also help pay for Google's research into autonomous vehicles, improved search technology, etc. So I accept them, occasionally click on them, and sometimes even buy something.
This seems to be horrible mental gymnastics to try to maintain "Google good!" fanboism.
Expecting something for nothing is being childish. Grow up.
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or are you saying it shouldn't be that EITHER and it should be 100% free because you're entitled?
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
Google employees weren't reading the email. The US government now has a stupid law that when a law enforcement agency requests email, companies are required to hand it over without a warrant. That didn't mean anyone from Google was reading it ahead of time.
Someone should contest this (along with warantless wiretapping, GPS tracking, etc) to the Supreme Court because this behavior should be unconstitutional. Blame the executive branch for massively overstepping their authority.
Re:It's Quite Disingenuous (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I believe it.
You know why? Because they can use internal emails or just test data to tune their algorithms. Promising not to actual read your emails and then lying about it would literally threaten their entire business model. Why take such a risk that could destroy your company? That would be monumentally stupid.
I don't think Google is that stupid.
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Best thing Google can do is ignore it (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is experiencing the first stages of a death spiral now that their entry into mobile and tablet markets is a dismal failure and they have done nothing to boost PC enthusiasm. All Microsoft can rely on know is their services, however Bing is now in 5th place for search engines. Hotmail is largely used by people that wanted a second email for stuff they know will spam them, and just converting it to Outlook doesn't make it any less likely people will use it for their primary email.
I really don't care what Google does with a collection of keywords collected in my email. Nobody at Google is personally reading my email, and even so, what of it? Had there been even one single case of a Google employee abusing the information gained from scanning emails to relate to advertising then I could fully back Microsoft's campaign, but its just not the case.
Personally all Microsoft is going to have for customers is a bunch of conspiracy theory nuts and people significant paranoia issues. If this is the kind of user base you want to cultivate by this kind of smear campaign, go right ahead, but I doubt it will save Microsoft in the long run.
The only thing Google should do about this is ignore it. I would rather have a user base of smart rational individuals any day, so let Microsoft bleed the crazies away from Google.
Re:Saw an ad on ABC last night with my wife (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably that Google and Microsoft resemble each other in many substantive ways, including a declining respect for user privacy.
Google can get away with it, because they're our favorite company around here. If Microsoft did the same thing there'd be a 1000 post thread here about it.
Re:Saw an ad on ABC last night with my wife (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:semantic analysis in the future (Score:5, Insightful)
Google might even change it's policy and let humans read your e-mails.
So might Microsoft in their cloud hosting service! ...Your point?
You gave them permission. How do do you know what google will do int he next ten years?
Once again you gave the same permission to Microsoft, specifically the clause that lets them change TOS at will with your only recourse being to stop using the service.
Maybe some credit agency will pay them $100 per user account to see all your e-mails.
Mean while microsoft is actually promising in their user agreement that they will never ever do that to you. There's thus a big difference.
Of course, that same user agreement also give Microsoft the option of changing those rules at their convenience, and the burden is on you to discover the change, not on them to reveal it.
Re:Saw an ad on ABC last night with my wife (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft actually does the exact same thing. So where is the 1000 post thread about it?
Re:Saw an ad on ABC last night with my wife (Score:5, Insightful)
In the states, our foremost vital constitutional right is that of free speech, which means you can say that your competition sucks if you like. Or not say it. Or say yours is great. Or say both. Or neither.
Re:Saw an ad on ABC last night with my wife (Score:3, Insightful)
What kind of fucked up ambiguous, selective, and arbitrary system of oppression do you have over there?
One where corporations don't get absolute free rein to pollute our minds with all kinds of ambiguous, selective, arbitrary and oppressive bullshit.
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then are they charging for email service, or do they give it away out of the goodness of their soul?** If they're giving it away, what is their motive? Or do their stockholders feel it is a good thing to spend capital resources to provide the public a free service for no benefit?
**does Microsoft have a soul? If so, is it powered by
Gmail users are suppliers, not products (Score:5, Insightful)
Wrong. I am the supplier of the inputs for the product that is being packaged by Google and sold to advertisers, and Gmail is (one of many parts of) the payment Google provides to me in return for providing those inputs.
If I am not satisfied that the payment is sufficient value for what Google is asking in exchange, I stop providing the inputs and reject the payment.
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Then get off his lazy ass and build it.
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:4, Insightful)
Google gets my trust because it allows me to export data from their services - like Google Docs. Because they give me free stuff that I don't have to pay for. If the consequences are that I get more targeted ads instead of untargeted ones...oh the horror! I like them because I have an inexpensive Nexus 4 instead of an overpriced iOS product. I love them because of the cheap and fast Internet they're rolling out in Kansas. Need I go on?
I can say with 100% confidence that my life is better due to Google. And I don't have to pay a thing. I've never been inconvenienced. For that, I love them. I know they don't sell my data to anyone because they'd be fools to do so. And I know they have the utmost incentive to not let it leak out to anyone else.
The day I find myself inconvenienced by Google is the day I lose my trust in them. But till that happens, they get the benefit of the doubt.
Re:Speaking of "Smear Campaigns"... (Score:4, Insightful)
As a company policy, they weren't. Anyone who did was fired. Microsoft is claiming that it is Google's official policy to have employees read your email.
I would hope you can understand the distinction.