Google's New Big Brother Email Service

Infowars.com
april 2, 2004

Last month we posted an article from 2002 titled, Outsourcing Big Brother: Office of Total Information Awareness Relies on Private Sector to Track Americans.

Now, google is all over the news having announced it's new "free" Email service. The truth is, google will be scanning and analysing users' mail. The implications are terrifying, some of which are addressed below in articles related to the topic we found today on the web.

Google's Eyes in Your Inbox
Washington post
April 2, 2004

The old adage "nothing in life is free" rings true for search engine giant Google 's plans to launch a free e-mail service to take on the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft 's MSN/Hotmail.

On the surface, Google's Gmail appears to offer a great deal -- free e-mail accounts with a whopping 1 gigabyte of storage space and fancy search functions to sift through messages. But the catch is that e-mail messages will come packaged with tailored ads generated by Google's sophisticated ad delivery system. The preying eyes of Google's technology will effectively mine e-mail content to match up personal e-mail correspondence with targeted ads.

Privacy advocates are already crying foul, and it's a fair question whether Google is being caught by surprise by such criticism after being spoiled by so much glowing media coverage lately as it prepares for what is expected to be the biggest IPO in years.

Google tried to get ahead of the controversy in the new e-mail service's privacy policy , which says: "We serve highly relevant ads and other information as part of the service using our unique content-targeting technology. No human reads your email to target ads or related information to you without your consent."

So is it OK, as Google's privacy policy implies, for a computer to rifle through your personal correspondence? The answer is a resounding "no!" from a privacy community that insists the opportunities for abuse are just too big to ignore.

Chris Hoofnagle of the Electronic Privacy Information Center offered up one of the best sound bites to the Los Angeles Times on why consumers should be wary: "He likened the Gmail ads to a computerized voice interrupting a phone conversation about a vacation with a pitch for a travel agency." The L.A. Times went on to offer its own example of intrusive ad-delivery, saying "the specter of seeing an ad for an antacid beside a message from a friend complaining about stomach pain is enough to make some people nervous about the e-mail service." Jordana Beebe , the communications director for San Diego-based Privacy Rights Clearinghouse , told the paper: "The privacy implications of going through and perusing a customer's e-mail to display targeted advertising could be the Achilles' heel for Google's services."
• The Los Angeles Times: Google's E-mail Strategy Criticized (Registration required)

London's The Guardian explained more about how the service would work: "Google said Gmail users would be able to search emails by sender, topic or other keywords and organise them according to conversational threads. Google claimed it would have better anti-spam filters than its rivals, a key selling point for all providers. But there will be a drawback. Google hopes to make money from the service by programming its servers to pick up key words in emails and deliver related advertising in the messages. An email about a concert might include a link from a ticketing agency, for instance."
• The Guardian: Google Sends Message To Its Rivals -- Gmail

Yinka Adegoke , deputy editor of New Media Age , told the London Telegraph that "[t]here are privacy concerns around contextual advertising. Not everyone is going to be happy with the idea that if they send emails about football, they will then have football-related ads stuck in their emails and that a computer somewhere is recording that information."
• The Telegraph: Google Launches Advanced E-mail In War On Rivals

Google stressed that ads would only show up on incoming e-mail, according to Wired. " Wayne Rosing , Google's vice president of engineering, said the system would not read and insert ads into correspondence that the Gmail user sent out. 'That would be editorializing your outgoing e-mail,' he said."
• Wired: Free E-mail With A Steep Price

Google's Jonathan Rosenberg "said yesterday that the ads would be akin to coupons that shoppers get at grocery stores based on what they've just purchased," The Washington Post reported. "For example, during a trial run of the service, Rosenberg said he and his sister exchanged e-mails that discussed their mother's interest in gardening. An ad for a garden bench then appeared next to the text of his e-mail. He bought the bench for his parents' 50th anniversary."

Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kevin Bankston said he "worried that the information kept by Google for advertising purposes could wind up in a gray legal area not protected by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. 'It's a back door to seeing the content of your e-mail, without seeing your e-mail,' he said. 'They completely avoid this in their privacy policy.'" But Google co-founder Larry Page had a quick answer to Bankston's criticism: "I think that our intent in this is to treat any information that is generated by your e-mail as your e-mail itself," he told The Post. "If there's a possibility of this, that's something we should definitely investigate."
• The Washington Post: Google E-Mail Ad Plans Raise Fears About Privacy (Registration required)

Google is banking on reactions like these from some consumers. "Would you use a free personal e-mail service if you knew it read your messages before you did? Brant Skogrand would without hesitation. So would Mary Linneborg," The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. "Google has an outstanding reputation, and I don't feel they would do anything to harm their customers," Skogrand said. "Actually, I would be curious to see what they would try to sell me," Linneborg said. A dream candidate for spammers and Google G-mail alike.
• The St. Paul Pioneer Press: Google Gmail Banks On Goodwill

Why Gmail gives me the creeps
April 2, 2004
Charles Cooper/CNet

What's more, my hunch is that Microsoft and Yahoo will eventually respond in kind, lest they fall behind Google, which has been the beneficiary of fawning treatment in the press in the run-up to its initial public offering.

But all the encomia that's greeting the announcement of "Gmail" distracts attention from the fact that there's yet a hidden price you will still pay, albeit in the form of a different sort of coin.

The Google contextual advertising system automatically scans for frequently used terms in order to serve up ads. This constitutes a neat technology fix for Internet advertisers, who are always seeking to find ways to make their spots more convincing to Web surfers. For instance, if you e-mail a friend to play tennis this weekend, the system would lock onto the keyword and send you a relevant advertisement from a tennis gear supplier.

Sounds like a mind-blower, if you're the marketing director for Wilson Sporting Goods. Truth be told, however, this is the kind of technology advance that gives me the creeps.

Contextual advertising has been around for years. Type "dominatrix" as a search term, and you'll find enough hard-core bondage and fetish ads to keep you occupied for quite some time. But search is one category; your e-mail is quite another. Do you really want Google snooping so close to home? The company says it is not going to read the contents of anyone's in-box. Still, you don't need to be a privacy extremist to realize that this fundamentally remains a bad idea.

So, why is Google taking such a risk? In a word: Microsoft.

The folks in Redmond have been slow to get to market with a good search technology. Windows XP has a search function, but Microsoft expects to debut a killer search technology with Longhorn , the code name for the next important version of the Windows operating system. Company executives acknowledge that they're late to market, but they also express confidence in their ability to surpass Google's search technology.

Chest beating? To be sure. But Microsoft, not Google, owns the operating system. That's why Microsoft is talking about letting users do things like search out Windows Media tunes they once played or locate spreadsheet files from years' past. And after getting (rightly) slammed for all its privacy woes, my guess is that Microsoft will be more Catholic than the pope, when it comes to e-mail privacy and search. Besides, what better way to draw an invidious comparison with the competition?

Google was not first to market with search, but it was better than the rest and ultimately became No. 1. Microsoft can say the same about Internet browsers, spreadsheets and word processors. The point here: Technology tastes do change.

If it becomes a matter of an arms race, a company with a multibillion-dollar research and development budget can afford to take its time. That's why the big thinkers at Google should go back to the drawing board and correct a big mistake, before it's too late.

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