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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

#351

Post by amelius »

sowbug wrote: post #326
sean2 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's why I prefer irrelevant ads: 1. Targeted ads catch my attention better. Frequently I don't even notice or remember irrelevant adds. 2. Targeted ads are almost always, SEOed (if you will) to me; that is, they seem relevant, they offer the solution needed to fix the precise problem I'm discussing in the email chain, I click, I read, I would buy, but I realize that the product offered is nothing like what I've be…

I'm curious how you make a living and whether the business you're in relies on advertising to sustain itself. Perhaps I'm reading too much into your post, but I detect a value judgment that businesses trying to be businesses (i.e., selling you stuff) is a bad thing.

It's a bad thing if the business with the biggest advertisement budget wins, rather than the business with the best (or most fitting) product.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#352

Post by sebastian »

e12e wrote: post #294
sebastian wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some type of proof‐of‐work for email addresses that have not been previously white-listed. Similar to what BitMessage does[1]. Sending emails to new/random contacts shouldn't be that easy anyway. [1] https://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf

Encrypting email to a single recipient is (a weak) proof of work. There's a big difference between sending 10k copies of a plaintext email, and retrieving a public key and encrypting to 10k recipients - not to mention that filtering out all non signed/not-signed-by-trusted-key should be a decent start for a whitelist/greylist. I'd be curious if anyone ever got gpg-encrypted spam?

Another approach would be to have to pay the equivalent of USD 5-10 cents in some email crypto currency in order to allow an unknown sender to put their email on my inbox. If I reply or add the sender to my whitelist the fee is automatically refunded to the original sender and future messages between both parties would won't require a transaction fee any longer.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#353

Post by snowman311 »

aleem wrote: post #267
jikeo wrote: post #164

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but it seems weird that the reporter nor any of the 140+ comments so far seemingly don't mention the recently published proposal for a new ePrivacy directive in the EU that will make it a lot harder for Google to scan e-mails in the first place. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-privacy-idUSKBN14U1FL https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/whatsapp-... http://www.kempli…

The industry at large and Apple in particular is coming at them from the other direction preferring premium, furthering ad blockers and offering better privacy defaults (iOS 11). Elon Musk has gone so far as to allude that Google is the only AI company that worries him[1]. And so it goes. Coupled with AI and the amount of data they are able to feed into the AI engines, I am guessing this won't regress their ad target…

Agreed. The Google Ad Machine will never stop running. But, I think they will diversify their revenue streams in the coming years. Forces outside of Google's control such as governments and competition will begin to push back on the "all you can eat buffet" of personal data that Google has enjoyed in the past years.

Based on the numbers in the article like doubling their "large business" user base in the past year, I think Diane Greene will lead them to generating huge revenue in the Enterprise sector. Also, I think freemium versions of Google software, directed at consumers, will be increasingly popular in the future.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#354

Post by gpm »

fnj wrote: post #342
gpm wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> RF dead chambers are bloody expensive for a reason: you can't emulate them by pasting some paint on a wall. Couldn't you just stick yourself in a metal box (with a metal door that is careful to get a good seal)?

How do you propose to breathe in there?

By opening the door when not in use.

If you need continuous use, two rooms. One that acts as an "airlock" with an outer door that is open only when the door to the other room is closed. Battery operated fans and lights used as necessary.

Note that the "inner room" might be as small as a ammo crate depending on your use case.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#355

Post by jszymborski »

weitzj wrote: post #229
weitzj wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are using fastmail as well, and it is great. They have a solution for every weird mail-problem we tried to solve, i.e. shared inbox folders, shared calendars and integration with "dump" client applications. For example your username might differ in order to access a shared calendar. Also you can generate application passwords for an account. So you can create an SMTP-only application password for your fastmail acc…

Oh. And personally I am using mailbox.org which is also nice but a little bit cheaper. And the feature-set is still great, but limited compared to FastMail. Also the webui in mailbox.org is slower than for fastmail.

one nice thing about mailbox.org is that you can have them encrypt incoming email with PGP. Allows you to use IMAP and get protonmail/tutanote-esque security... I really like it :)

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#356

Post by reynoldsbd »

gub09 wrote: post #350
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…

Does fastmail let you use your own domain?

Yes indeed

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#357

Post by sumedh »

x0x0 wrote: post #307
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

> so walking away from an ads business that may possibly (but I doubt it) be earning hundreds of millions

They are making billions from ads, just look their annual report.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#358

Post by mythz »

tezzer wrote: post #323
x0x0 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

When you say ads don't make much money, are you talking about from business users? 2Q 2016 $19 billion of Alphabet's $21 billion in revenue came from ads, so that seems like a strange statement.

The total advertising figure is irrelevant, most of their revenue comes from Search advertising where users are proactively in the context of seeking specific information at the point where relevant ads are most lucrative.

The only revenue being sacrificed is being able to deliver less contextual ads in gmail, they still know a lot about you so they'll still be targeted ads so their sacrificing marginal contextual targeting vs peace of mind in a large corporate market which are hesitant to use Google's G-Suite products because of their concerns that their emails are being scanned.

Google is smart, if they're doing this it's because they've calculated the increase potential in G-Suite revenue is more than the marginal loss in less contextually specific ads in gmail. Other factors that play a role in the decision is better branding in that Google is no longer spying in your private conversations to sell you targeted ads and the mitigation of potential lawsuits.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#359

Post by everythingswan »

aembleton wrote: post #291
myrandomcomment wrote: post #242

So this never really bugged me. It is a damn good free service. I also love how it picks up on plane tickets, hotel reservations, etc and puts them in the calendar. Makes life simpler. If ad companies fix something please fix the I searched for something and bought it but I get adds for it for the next 4 weeks. That bugs me.

Frustratingly, by reading my emails Google should know that I've bought something and so don't need ads about it. But hey, they don't seem to have used that data.

At that point, it's on the advertiser. It's a weird dynamic where they want to enable the advertiser to factor that in and not advertise to you, but they want to maximize rev and imperfect advertisers increases rev.

( = edit for grammar)

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#360

Post by x0x0 »

tezzer wrote: post #323
x0x0 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

When you say ads don't make much money, are you talking about from business users? 2Q 2016 $19 billion of Alphabet's $21 billion in revenue came from ads, so that seems like a strange statement.

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