Are you creeped out by gmail?

Question

Did you know Google scans your emails for key words? I read it somewhere and I was like whatever. But seriously, I have noticed that the advertising sidebar contains advertisements geared toward my email topics! We were having septic problems and I was emailing a friend of mine, her husband does septic work - all the sidebar emails were septic related! I run an in home daycare - I was emailing someone about some new kids I was getting - guess what - the sidebars were all daycare related! I only use gmail for a few people who have trouble with my yahoo account for whatever reason. But I am kind of disturbed by the way they do things. What do you think?

Answer 1

Yes, it is true. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Read this and you may just turn off your computer.

Answer 2

This freaked people out when gmail first opened years back

but the system is just automated



in fact as part of your privacy statement what you do is completely private

the us government about a year so so back actualy tried to make Google release search results to them to see what people were doing on the internet and where they were going in regards to certain things, most likely to intervene, but Google fought them to the end to protect the user rights



i'll say you have nothing to worry about

there is no person sitting there reading billions of emails saying oh this is about daycare...

just say 200 daycare ads, and if an email has a word of daycare in it they get placed there.



also on an irrelevant note... some search engines have no problem releasing information to the government... no names mentioned but if you feel paranoid do some research



hope this helped yoru paranoia !

Answer 3

The notion that any Web-based email provider should not analyze the contents of an email that they freely allow you to use their servers to create, send, and receive is ludicrous.



They have a right to try to make money by offering goods and services that are based on the current needs that may be indicated by the machine-generated analysis of an email.



It's not as though there are individuals sitting there reading your personal commentary to Harry Hardluck or Sally Sobstory. Such things are handled by computers analyzing text and funneling advertisements based on that analysis.



I'd be more troubled if your Internet Service Provider were doing such things, especially if your ISP charges you as much as my ISP charges me.



For true privacy, look into PGP encryption to keep your emails truly private. Of course, once your intended recipient gets your PGP encrypted emails, they'll probably get forwarded to scores of other people (and the recipient probably won't even use the BCC box!).

Answer 4

Its a robotic script, its like being scared every time an ambulance comes by and the street light turns green.

The ambulance doesn't have "magical" powers, in some cities it has a transmitter which tells the street light, hey im coming change colors.



The script looks for keywords in your email, and replaces them with advertising links.

You have nothing to worry about, they aren't reading your email. Its just they want to rake in advertising dollars. Can't blame them right? How else do you expect them to offer so many services including 6gb free storage without making a little cash.



An don't worry nor do they sell your email, nor is it publicly viewable through "search"

Answer 5

This is Yahoo and if you look over there now it says the same thing.

There are some here who post some pretty personal stuff. That really creeps me out.

The mail I don't have a problem.

When I need to send or transfer secure things, I have a server for that.

Answer 6

You click on the down arrow button beside the Google search tool and click clear history. I don't exactly know which part of gmail you're referring to, but sure hope my answer could help some.

Answer 7

This is true.Google releases new programs all the time to make sure it will control every computer.For me this is privacy invasion and aside from the search engine,I keep a distance from all google products.

Answer 8

I am pretty sure they (hotmail, yahoo, etc) do the same thing. They are targeting the market they think will be the most interested in certain products.

Answer 9

there are millions of mails going on gmail eachday.

what do u think,they have employed the whole population of china for that?

Answer 10

i dont really seem to mind. at least on gmail i never get junk mail. unlike yahoo mail.

Answer 11

I don't really care

I don't give personal info to gmail, anyways, there are millions of people who use gmail, they can't examine each person individually.

Answer 12

They scan it for key words just so that they can give you relevant ads. Because then - you're more likely to click them.



They'r not recording your thoughts or anything. Chill out.

Answer 13

r u serious?

google talks like the best im evr but i dont want ppl reading my emails.



is it only emails or is it for chats too??

Answer 14

Yes, but it's all automatic and nobody actuly looks at it.