Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#431

Post by neves » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

It basically means that they already track so much information about you that they don't need to monitor the contents of your email anymore.

Now Google knows: - all your searches (know your interests), - a great percentage of the pages you visit (ads and analytics) - all your contacts and how frequently you connect to them (metadata in gmail) - the places you visit (geolocation in Android) - Google logins (know the sites that interest you the most)

Your email contents is completely unecessary.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#432

Post by freshhawk » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 5:47 PM UTC

roganp wrote: post #341

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.

Or, maybe: the extra information gleaned from reading your emails is just not that valuable. Not because they have this via other means, but its just not that valuable, period - whether it comes from reading emails or scrutinizing your browser history. We like to imagine that if advertisers knew enough about us, they'd be able to direct our spending, but I think that is far from true.

> We like to imagine that if advertisers knew enough about us, they'd be able to direct our spending, but I think that is far from true.

So you haven't worked in an industry where you had that data and tried it then? In my experience you are completely, utterly wrong.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#433

Post by SquareWheel » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

okreallywtf wrote: post #69

Overtonwindow wrote: post #43

I think I've become jaded because I just don't believe it. It's like Google Home. A wonderful device but when I heard it may start listening to everything I say... I just figured yeah, that should be expected. So now I just expect Google to read, listen, and analyze everything I do with their products.

Maybe I don't understand google home because I don't have one, but to be able to detect whatever keywords cause it to listen to you doesn't it have to listen to everything you say? I feel like any device that has a microphone is suspect if you want total privacy, but listening to what you say seems like an integral part of the device. You can only hope (and independently verify) that they don't store everything you s…

They use basic detection to listen for keywords locally, and only if they keyword is triggered will they start sending data to their servers (which has significantly more powerful language parsing logic).

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#434

Post by late2part » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 6:57 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #393

applecrazy wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn't offer unlimited data storage. 15GB to start and more can be purchased.

The storage offering was way way less than that when everyone here signed up, though it was still vastly greater than anything anyone else offered if memory serves.

Agreed. I sort of figure that increase is due to bandwidth inflation and decreasing unit costs.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#435

Post by Lambent » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 7:41 PM UTC

To be clear, Google is not saying they'll stop reading your emails, only that your emails' contents won't be used to generate ad content.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#436

Post by TheChosen » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 7:47 PM UTC

Quite obviously Google feels their profiling of users from other sources is good enough that they can afford to throw them a bone - not to mention save themselves a bit of effort since they will no longer need to maintain two systems for GMail.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#437

Post by Manager » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 7:50 PM UTC

Well this is an interesting turn of events.

I wasn't expecting this from a company that makes most of it's revenue through advertising. Sets a cautiously positive precedent.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#438

Post by CamperBob2 » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 8:12 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #346

CamperBob2 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they did. Probably just tobacco companies alone. A response as silly as it was predictable. Show me a Gulag Archipelago written about the tobacco industry and we'll have some grounds for further discussion. Since corporations are creatures of government, that's true by definition of everything corporations do. Ditto.

> Show me a Gulag Archipelago written about the tobacco industry and we'll have some grounds for further discussion. So if no one writes world class literature about your crimes, they didn't happen?

At some point, you'll come to understand that not every debate can be reduced to an exercise in moral relativism and dismissed with a flourish of false equivalence.

That works well enough on HN, as seen in the moderation in this thread, but not in real life.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#439

Post by h1d » Sat, Jun 24, 2017, 11:58 PM UTC

chicob wrote: post #204

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…

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.

If people worry about passing email content to Google for privacy reasons, why use gmail? Seriously.

Re: Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

#440

Post by h1d » Sun, Jun 25, 2017, 12:03 AM UTC

dingaling wrote: post #48

skrause wrote: post #33

I never understood the argument that some automatic scanning for keywords is like "reading" your mail. By that same logic isn't Gmail's spam filter still "reading" your mail? It is classifying your mail based on content after all...

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.

Why try to pretend Google is nice to you? If their spam filter gathers the most relevant words and keep them stored for admins to look for the sake of tuning or whatever and maybe the admin also works in the ad department, perhaps checking on your email isn't for ad targeting.

You need to give up on your content the day you started using gmail, no matter what the TOS says.