mikao's world

More on Gmail

From what I have been able to learn about Google's new currently-in-the-Beta-testing-stage email service, gmail, we shouldn't be worried about privacy when we are using it any more than we would be when we use other free email service providers like Yahoo and Hotmail.

What makes gmail different is that it uses targeted advertising. Most, if not all, free email services, have advertising. That's how they pay for themselves and make money. People use the email services and are advertised to.

An article I found today about gmail says this:

"As soon as the Internet giant (Google) announced the specifics of its offering, privacy advocates and others began lambasting the company, complaining that Google's policies would violate user's privacy rights..."

"Before I get into the specifics of why the attacks on Google are wrong, it's helpful to know exactly what it's offering. Gmail is a free Web based e-mail service that will provide 1GB of free storage space. Messages will apparently be threaded in some form to make seeing the message in context easier. A Google e-mail search capability will also be provided as part the service."

"Compared to some of its competitors such as Hotmail and Yahoo, Google is taking a quantum leap in terms of e-mail storage space. But this comes at a premium--Google will be using its computers to scan user e-mail for keywords, in order to deliver targeted advertising in each message received by or sent from Gmail accounts. The company is promising that no human being will ever read user's e-mail."

"...The hysteria about Gmail has spread beyond the tech industry--even government (people) are getting in on the action. One legislator in California, seemingly clueless about the legitimate place of advertising in free Web services, is vowing to block Google from offering its services in her state if the service includes targeted advertising."

"Users also need to get a clue about the reality of e-mail security in general. If you think that your communications using free Web mail services or any other unencrypted e-mail service are 'private,' you're way off. E-mails can be read by anyone with access to the various servers your messages are transmitted to as they make their way across the Internet."

"If e-mail security and privacy are your top concern, free Web services are something you should already be steering clear of. You should be using a regular e-mail account hosted by your ISP instead, and then begin using PGP or some other encryption agent to make sure that your e-mail remains truly private."

I am actually surprised that other email services do not use targeted advertising. I don't really see anything wrong with targeted advertising on my email, but then again, I've been seeing targeted advertising for years. We see it on the top of Blogspot-hosted blogs. We see it when we use search engines. We see it all over the web. Why the hoopla about targeted advertising in our email?