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Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

bloomberg.com

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Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#101

Post by seangrogg »

ethanpil wrote: post #29

Does that mean that Google now has no more use for Gmail, and soon millions of people will be scrambling to cover yet another product sunset? That would certainly cause an enormous loss of goodwill, but.... imagine this scenario: Google has some slow growth quarters, they need to keep the numbers up for shareholders. They start to examine what they can squeeze. Gmail costs them X (hundreds?) millions per year, but do…

I significantly doubt it. It's ubiquitous internally. It's a major selling point of GSuite. It'll likely remain one of Google's biggest ad-serving faces outside of Search.

They may get rid of one of their applications (gmail OR inbox), but I doubt they'd get rid of the entire platform. They'd lose more revenue than they'd recover.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#102

Post by sillysaurus3 »

QuantumGravy wrote: post #84
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you can buy some paint that blocks all RF signals. It's absurdly expensive but quite effective. There aren't many ways to get signals out of a room painted with the stuff. If you're thinking "Why not just build a faraday cage?" then you're thinking the right thing.

> "Why not just build a faraday cage?" Then my very next thought is, "Who is going to notice my house-sized faraday cage, who are they going to tell, and what are those people going to do in turn?"

Lan party.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#103

Post by bitJericho »

icebraining wrote: post #13
bitJericho wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few servers store/transmit emails unencrypted...

Not that few - more than 1 in 10 emails sent and received by Gmail are unencrypted: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/saferemail/

That's higher than I would have expected. The question though, is who is not allowing encrypted emails? I wonder if it's mostly just China.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#104

Post by throwaway2048 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #76
roywiggins wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spam filter is for my benefit, but scanning for ad keywords is designed to benefit someone else, not me.

Ads benefit both you and the other group that they connect you. You finding out about, say, a product you are interested benefits you.

Out of curiosity do you work in advertising tech or marketing?

They are about the only people I've ever seen express this view seriously.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#105

Post by skrebbel »

cybrjoe wrote: post #72
dingaling wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like my accountant reading my receipts to create my tax return versus a sleazy salesman sneaking a peek at them to find new ways to sell me stuff.

It's more like your accountant preparing your tax return for free in exchange for aggregating data about your receipts and offering you goods and services you may be interested in.

> and offering you goods and services you may be interested in.

Sounds like a sleazy salesman to me.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#107

Post by ouid »

cybrjoe wrote: post #72
dingaling wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like my accountant reading my receipts to create my tax return versus a sleazy salesman sneaking a peek at them to find new ways to sell me stuff.

It's more like your accountant preparing your tax return for free in exchange for aggregating data about your receipts and offering you goods and services you may be interested in.

Let's split the difference. It's like your accountant preparing your tax return in exchange for using that tax return to develop a model of your spending habits. The value of this model is more than the cost of them doing your tax returns, and in fact is such that if you were simply to collect that data yourself, sell it on the open market, and spend a portion of the proceeds on the tax prep service, you would end up with profit, and the tax prep service would still exist.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#110

Post by oh_sigh »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #104
oh_sigh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads benefit both you and the other group that they connect you. You finding out about, say, a product you are interested benefits you.

Out of curiosity do you work in advertising tech or marketing? They are about the only people I've ever seen express this view seriously.

Nope - I am a developer working on a consumer oriented application with no advertisements.

I'm not trying to say that all ads give you that benefit - most are just a waste of screen space, compute and bandwidth.

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