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This goes a few steps past just reading keywords out of my emails to place ads. This requires Gmail to have intimate knowledge of my emailing habits. While from the software point of view this is not scary, the "profile" data has to be stored someplace other then my machine and it makes me wonder who can read it. Will Google have to surrender my psychological profile upon a subpoena? This is sarcastic, but a real con…
A bug? or some Google's programmer idea of being "helpful" or "funny"? I did not appreciate it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"the data has to be stored someplace other then my machine and it makes me wonder who can read it" Data being stored someplace other than your machine is the reason why people use webmail.
I think he meant the "psychological profile" data, not his email text.
It will probably be used against someone who actually has bona fide interest in child pornography. Probably.
After all, cache contents and network logs are used to help convict people all of the time. Most of them are factually guilty, but the legal system probably does not see eye to eye with technically inclined members of this audience as to whether cache contents mean that someone intended or attempted to view the cached content.
#28 of YC's Ideas They'd Like to Fund "Fixing email overload. A lot of people, including me, feel they get too much email. A solution would find a ready market. But the best solution may not be anything as obvious as a new mail reader. Related problem: Using your inbox as a to-do list. The solution is probably to acknowledge this rather than prevent it."
I've been doing this sort of thing ever since they introduced the Multiple Inboxes lab feature. It wasn't Gmail's logic, it was my own in a series of complex filters. Here's a screen grab from February 2009: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johndbritton/3257013239/sizes/o...
Having tested this the last few days, I would raise a rebel army if Google tried to take it away.
The reason I don't run my own email any more though, is that the real killer feature of gmail is the spam detection. That makes me willing to put up with their control of my mail.