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by tchblue5

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I am an fan of Google, say what you will.

However, I have been reading the chatter about how Google's Gmail is using data mining techniques to target web advertisements of their users.

I was curious just how true and to what extent this was happening, so I got myself a Gmail account. After a few random messages had been typed and sent out the boarders surrounding my email messages were advertisements for what ever the topic of discussion in my email messages was that day. Say, if I was planning baseball practice for my boys' baseball team the ads would say, "Buy discount batting supplies!"

I was amazed that they were actually filtering out the content of my messages and extrapolating the data. They must in turn be selling that info to companies that advertise thru Google.

Well, I did check the box that agreed to the terms of using Gmail but does that mean that every message I send should be subject to advertising scrutiny? Sure, its not like some guy is sitting behind a monitor in a dimly lit room looking at all of my email message content but it does put into prospective the line between what is truly ?yours? and ?theirs?. My email is my private conversations. Not an advertising mechanism. Or, so it was?

11 replies

by rfink

I highly doubt that a human actually reads every e-mail posted. I'm guessing it's a computer program that looks for key works and pulls ad accordingly.

I'd rather read ads about products I'm interested in than stuff I couldn't care less about.

by oz_media

Forget Google, your ISP has the right to do this anytime too. Some mroe svcary ISP realities:

**Your ISP can share your personal information with any of their partners or affiliates (you agreed to it by accetping the service)((regardless of constitutional privacy rights, as you have agreed to their doing so))

**They have the right to use just about anything you post or transmit online, without repercussions. (as does Tech republic towards anything you post here, it becomes THEIRS).

**They have a right to trace and target marketing efforts toward you, by any of their affiliates or partners.

**They have a right to send those messages and ads to your desktop at will.

People seem to feel there is some form of assumed privacy when using teh internet, think again, it's like shouting secrets in a public place, you can't do anything about it.

by forum surfer

A wise man once said the only way to keep a secret between two people is if one of them is dead.

I think most of the google hype about data mining is paranoia at its finest. While alot of it is true...the same could be said of yahoo, msn or any other free mail service you use.

If you don't want someone to find out about something don't tell anyone, email it or store it online!

by wesley.chin

You bring up something with the storage of information online. With services such as Mozy, Carbonite and the like, secrecy might very well put them out of business. But it hasn't...

by tchblue5

I read that Comcast is looking into placing video cameras that see only images... ie: body shapes/types, on thier TV mounted cable receivers. Their idea is to be able to customize the comercials being aired to the person or types of people watching. So if they see that a female is sitting on the couch the fill the air time with kitchen products and the like. If there are a few smalled framed images then they will air toys and video games. (Granted that would work for me, too.) Talk about invasion of privacy issues or futures of marketing...?

by forum surfer

I'm not sending out anything THAT sensitive personaly anywho. Hell if you work that hard to intercept all my dirty little secret emails then as far as I'm concerned you've earned the right to read them!

:)

Of course the email server at work is different, but we're just talking about gmail here.

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