Can Google Base Ads On E-mails Sent To Gmail Accounts?

concealment writes "A new lawsuit targets Google for reading e-mails to target ads, according to TechCrunch. But the issue isn't that Google is reading e-mails from registered users; rather, the company is using e-mails sent from other services to Google users to target ads as well. Google has gotten the side-eye a few times in the past for using e-mail content to serve context-based ads to its Gmail users. And for those Gmail users, Google's hide is covered: the terms of service explicitly state that users' e-mail content determines what ads they see."

Comments

I'm gonna sue any anti-spam filter

[ledow]

I'm gonna sue any anti-spam filter - because they ALL read the emails I've sent to other people who use them, without my permission, and may be targeting ads based on that.

And every antivirus software that integrates into Outlook.

And everything that might conceivably view the content of an email en-route (e.g. intermediate mail servers).

If the recipient chooses to use such software - that's up to them. If you send an email to them and they have agreed for Google to receive it on their behalf with their permission to read it, then that's not Google's problem.

It's like suing a courier firm that someone sent to your door to pick up a parcel, because they looked inside the package and the recipient that nominated the courier firm allowed them to.

Re:Are you new?

[egamma]

As to the topic at hand, I find it interesting that the question isn't "Should google be targeting non-subscriber email ads", but whether or not they should be looking at ANY email content.

At what point does it become ok for any personal email regardless of 'sender' to be used for targeted ads based on content?

They explicitly say in their terms of service, since day 1, that they will serve ads based on your emails. If you don't like this, then you shouldn't have signed up for a gmail account.