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Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

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Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#301

Post by euyyn »

calibration263 wrote: post #299
fserb wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you accountant was a computer. We have to stop this madness of thinking that "John READS my diary" means the same thing as "The function fread() READS nitems objects". Those don't mean the same thing except in a metaphorical sense. It's insane.

It's not about who reads it, it's about who has access. If a system has access to read my email as plain text, it means anyone who owns or can get access to that system can read my email. Some one wrote fread, it could've been john, and john absolutely could be reading your email. Look at the what happened with ubers god mode. That said the value of gmail for me exceeds the risk of people I care about reading my emai…

Probably easier to hack any other mail provider than hack into Google and own it so badly as to being able to read emails in plaintext.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#302

Post by bootlooped »

drusepth wrote: post #297

Will there still be a way to opt-in? This seems like one of those decisions that is a net negative for functionality in favor of quelling some misguided privacy concerns. Hopefully this doesn't lessen the quality of ads by much.

This is the first time I've ever heard a person worry about the quality of the ads that are served to them.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#303

Post by tomaskafka »

vaishaksuresh wrote: post #173

I very recently switched to fastmail and couldn't be happier. For $90 a year, I don't have to deal with people snooping and tracking me around for ads. I know google is trying to give me value with all their facial recognition and recommendations, but I don't think it is going to end well. When it does end badly, it will be too late for the user because we would've given up all the data. I don't want Google to build…

I have a problem with price. $90 for about 20 personal emails per year and a bunch of useful newsletters? Is there a $10 hosted mail that sends and receives reliably and doesn't sell my personal data on top of subscription (like AV companies)?

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#304

Post by euyyn »

StreamBright wrote: post #74
blowski wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play Devil's advocate, the ads benefit you because they make Gmail free.

I would rather pay and do not share anything with Google (or for that matter all of Google's partners who can purchase our data)

> all of Google's partners who can purchase our data

I'm pretty sure that's the empty set.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#305

Post by jszymborski »

stockmania wrote: post #300
jszymborski wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[I'm stupid they have 2FA, ignore this comment.] Another huge problem is the lack of two-factor authentication. How can a security-oriented service not offer TOTP or even SMS 2FA.

2FA has been out for almost 6 months.

Oops, my Google-fu is worse than I thought.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#306

Post by sqeaky »

sqeaky wrote: post #174
Ajedi32 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. Is that drone providing me with some other useful service, or is it following me around entirely without my knowledge or consent? Gmail provides me with a free email service. They already have the full text of all my emails. If they want to use that data to help decide what ads to serve me, I have no problem with that so long as that data isn't shared with anyone else without my consent.

> data isn't shared with anyone else without my consent Do you have any way of verifying this? I am not accusing google of anything, I just find this to be an interesting level of trust to have with a free online service.

I am curious about the downvotes. Do we really downvote people here for questioning trusting Google?

I didn't even say not to trust google, I just questioned the level of trust.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#307

Post by x0x0 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #289
chicob wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That directive might be related to what's happening. But let's not be naive: if Google will stop reading our emails in order to send us personalized ads, that's because it doesn't really need to. People share just enough outside their email environment for Google to do its thing. Another sign of which those worrying about privacy should be aware.

Exactly. Google already knows a shit ton about you, and given how data driven they are, I guarantee they came to the conclusion that they would still be able to show highly targeted ads with little or no loss in revenue or click-through-rates rates. Heck, dollars to donuts they've already A/B tested the shit out of it to reach this conclusion.

Or they're willing to take a loss on the ads -- which frankly don't make much money -- to go after the far more lucrative corporate emailing/calendaring market. The pricing is $5/$10/$higher per user-month, so walking away from an ads business that may possibly (but I doubt it) be earning hundreds of millions to avoid a cloud over your sales process for the aforementioned multi-billion dollar business seems like a solid trade.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#308

Post by hyper_reality »

Veratyr wrote: post #250
vaishaksuresh wrote: post #173

I very recently switched to fastmail and couldn't be happier. For $90 a year, I don't have to deal with people snooping and tracking me around for ads. I know google is trying to give me value with all their facial recognition and recommendations, but I don't think it is going to end well. When it does end badly, it will be too late for the user because we would've given up all the data. I don't want Google to build…

I tried Fastmail for a while but I just couldn't deal with the spam. There was a lot of spam and Gmail's filters seem to be better at dealing with it.

This is also merely anecdotal, but I don't recall having ever received more than a few spam emails in either my Gmail or Fastmail inboxes.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#309

Post by mongmong »

WisNorCan wrote: post #191

This most likely is a pragmatic financial decision. Contextual advertising is generating a lower CPM than data/person based advertising. Said differently the relevance that can be extracted from your specific email is less than the cumulative knowledge that Google has about you from other sources.

But couldn't the contextual email data be used to supplement the global personal data google already has on you? I don't understand why they would willingly forgo this data.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#310

Post by Steko »

andybak wrote: post #274
tzs wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't Google be able to largely mitigate the effects of that if they wanted to by making it so accounts that do not consent to the scanning get smaller mailboxes or do not get spam filtering or something like that? I'd expect that would get most of its users to consent.

They could but is it worth it? I suspect the scanning of emails hasn't yielded the personalization once hoped. And the bad publicity outweighs any future potential.

I just think the dollars aren't there: (1) email itself is fading vs text and various social media and (2) 98% of the population reads 98% of their email through the generic mail app on their phones that doesn't display Google's ads anyway.
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