Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails For Gmail Ads (bloomberg.com) 67
Google will soon stop scanning emails received by some Gmail users, a practice that has allowed it to show them targeted advertising but which stirred privacy worries. From a report: The decision didn't come from Google's ad team, but from its cloud unit, which is angling to sign up more corporate customers. Alphabet's Google Cloud sells a package of office software, called G Suite, that competes with market leader Microsoft. Paying Gmail users never received the email-scanning ads like the free version of the program, but some business customers were confused by the distinction and its privacy implications, said Diane Greene, Google's senior vice president of cloud. "What we're going to do is make it unambiguous," she said. Ads will continue to appear inside the free version of Gmail, as promoted messages. But instead of scanning a user's email, the ads will now be targeted with other personal information Google already pulls from sources such as search and YouTube.
WHOA (Score:2, Insightful)
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I bet this is a pure money play. They likely realized ads for e-mail content have a lower return then from other data sources. Google has so many data sources on you, they no longer need e-mail content.
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Re: WHOA (Score:1)
Dear me, they don't scan the email when you read it, they scan it when it's on their servers so it doesn't matter how you read it, it still gets parsed for keywords. Have you never seen an ad for something that's only been in one of your gmails?
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Dear me, they don't scan the email when you read it, they scan it when it's on their servers so it doesn't matter how you read it, it still gets parsed for keywords. Have you never seen an ad for something that's only been in one of your gmails?
I can't say that I have. Then again, that is probably because I am rather meticulous in the employment of Adblock Plus and Noscript.
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We Already Know All About You (Score:5, Funny)
We already know all about you and no longer need to continue to read your email.
Besides, your sad, pathetic lives were depressing our mail reading Ad-bots.
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Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to read how to loose belly fat in just one week...
So, how long until they shut it down? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kidding aside, if they're no longer mining free users for useful information, it becomes nothing more than a vehicle for delivering ads. Given that Gmail is a gateway into the Google ecosystem for a lot of people, I seriously doubt that they'd kill it entirely, but I wouldn't bet on seeing any more major increases to the storage space allotted for the free tier.
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The free tier is already at 15GB... how much more email space does a person need?
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Isn't that 15GB across the Google ecosystem. So if you use Drive, or store full resolution photos, etc, then you could hit that pretty quickly.
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It's not just email space anymore - it's actually shared space between GMail, GDrive and probably other services...
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Google gets ~$200 per annum for each TB of disk sold in 100GB chunks, which is a pretty good RoI even before you factor in that Google is almost certainly doing a *lot* of de-duplication on the stored data.
I'm not sure what deduplication you're referring to, but they definitely do a lot of duplication. Each piece of data you hand over to them is mirrored at least twice to prevent catastrophes. There may also be offline backups on tape.
Plus if you can accept a slight quality loss, Photos gives you unlimited storage at "high quality".
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I don't think they reasonably can shut it down while they have all these other services tied to it. They'd have to go to a lot of effort to un-tie them. It's probably easier just to keep gmail going than to do all of that, and this is a way to make it cheaper — by avoiding lawsuits.
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The business model for Gmail ought to be outsourcing corporate email accounts - for a fee and with no spying whatsoever. Gmail for the rest of us could then continue as a loss leader to get corporations to sign up base on 'it's the email system we all use at home'. An interesting 180 flip from home users buying MS products because 'it's what I use at work'...
Read what they said (Score:5, Insightful)
Speak No Evil
Re:Read what they said (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not even. They won't use email content as the direct trigger for an ad, but they will still scan everything from non-paying customers and that shit goes on your permanent record.
Try sending yourself some condolences from an external address and watch your gmail promoted tab fill up with shit about flowers and burial services. It's sickening.
Re:Read what they said (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be pretty pissed if they did. It's nice to grab your phone and see that evening's flight details, or get a reminder that you have a bill due in three days, etc.
These are features that make my life easier and are only possible by having a computer scan my email.
Re: Read what they said (Score:1)
None of that is happening tho. They scan your emails to serve you ads. That's it. It isn't to make your life easier.
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Maybe you don't have an android phone, or don't use Google Now? This stuff happens every day on Android. My phone lets me know where I parked my car - from the phone sensors, knows where I usually drive to on a Wednesday after work, so tells me the estimated travel time without any other entries, and will pull flight reservations, hotel bookings, bills due, package tracking and more straight f
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If using an alternate email supplier and turning off location services is beyond you, you could just buy a dumb phone.
All the stuff I mentioned is opt-in.
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I use Google Now to get something useful back from the data mining Google is doing anyway. Don't fool yourself into thinking that just because you opted out of having it do something useful for you that they aren't doing it behind your back for their own purposes.
Re:Read what they said (Score:4, Interesting)
Google is useful until it isnt. Dont fall in love with this 'feature', it will be used to spam you
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I imagine a future where people show up to events they didnt sign up for simply because some spammer sent them a properly formatted email.
If you show up to something that you have no recollection of signing up for just because your phone's calendar said to, then you are an idiot.
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I imagine a future where people show up to events they didnt sign up for simply because some spammer sent them a properly formatted email.
If you show up to something that you have no recollection of signing up for just because your phone's calendar said to, then you are an idiot.
Whew! It's a good thing that there a only a few idiots in our world, then. Situation averted.
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I hope they don't stop scanning e-mails. Their spam filters wouldn't be very effective otherwise.
Intent is everything.
Encryption (Score:2)
This will pave the way for google managed [NSA approved] email encryption.
Wait. There's a paid version of gmail? (Score:2)
Where do I sign up?
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https://gsuite.google.com/sign... [google.com]
There is even an 1 employee option.
Does this mean... (Score:2)
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You've already been hired. The pay is zero dollars per month.
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You've already been hired. The pay is zero dollars per month.
When a college roommate joined the FBI as a network technician, he got to carry a gun. Will the Secret Service let me carry a gun and take potshots at the malware?
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No, but you will continue getting ads for weight loss pills and "how to be a writer" courses.
Surprisingly, I don't get those. Not even on Slashdot.
Why? (Score:2)
People who use browsers to read emails deserve those ads.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
It's deeper than that, I believe.
I'm pretty sure it scans in the background as messages are received. The information is indexed and tied to your Google ID.
As you browse websites that display google ads while signed in to your Google account, you will receive targetted advertising based on all congruent data indexed, including your email if you use Gmail.
As well, if you have an Android device with Google Play, the targetted advertising will play a role in ads displayed in apps.
They are lying. (Score:1)
A number of years ago, when trying to get universities to outsource their email to gmail, google promised they wouldn't be scanning email for analytics, advertising, and tracking.
They flat-out lied the entire time:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]
Don't trust them.
Don't get me wrong, google has lots of handy services, but don't trust anything they say.
Google reading emails (Score:2)
Correction to Google headline:
Google "says" it will no longer scan ... blah,blah.
Their "promise" and $0.01 will buy me .... nothing.