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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."
The lawsuit is on behalf of "all persons in the province of British Columbia who have sent e-mail to a Gmail account" and demands statutory damages for breach of copyright of $500 per e-mail that Google has used for ads. The lawsuit also seeks an injunction against Google's use of e-mails going forward. Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
$500 per e-mail used for ads? Am I the only person that finds that to be just a tad bit insane?
Wayne Plimmer of British Columbia has filed a class-action lawsuit against Google for using his e-mails for ads. Plimmer is not a Gmail user, but his concern is that Google is reading and using his e-mails to serve ads to Gmail readers too. Being a non-Gmail user, he never agreed to the terms of service, so the legality of what Google is doing seems murky.
Okay. I can see that but can you explain how $500 per e-mail for everyone in BC is just about right for how much damages this has caused you?
My work here is dung.
All emails are property of the recipient. And Google has permission to read the email of its users. So it can read any email sent by anybody. In fact it might even have additional rights to enforce spam filters.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Email protocols are unsecured, sensitive mails should be encrypted.
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.
If it has only just been revealed to you that the free version of Gmail uses email to select targeted ads for the users, you don't belong here.
As time goes on, that distinction will become decreasingly relevant.
I have another concern with gmail, which is that it might be leaking ad information between gmail users.
By that I mean that if I'm corresponding with another gmail user, I get ads that are unrelated to anything we've discussed but which may be related to things that they are likely to have emailed or received emails about.
Just to give a trivial example, a friend has a pet. She has emailed me but never once mentioned the pet in email to me. I do not have any pets, nor have I mentioned them in my emails, but I now get ads for pet food. There are other examples that suggest my ads are based on my correspondents emails that weren't sent to me - that they are pulling in the ads based on both of our email histories.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
I actually like that they do this, because you can disable ads with it. If you receive an email at gmail that contains anything "Bad" such as "My mom died last night" then Google disables ads when you view that email. Try it. Long ago I added the string "my dog got hit by a car" to my email sig, in white text so it doesn't show up, as a favor to friends on gmail who get mail from me. They never have to look at ads while reading my emails.
I hate advertising. I liked this quote from Banksy, a UK artist:
"People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs."
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.
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
What he is saying is that when you give something to someone you no longer have control over it.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
The sender is bound to no such thing, and does not need to be in order for Google to do this. The receiver is bound to it, and it is the receiver that has and owns the email after the sender has sent it.
Same as if you hire someone to read all of your incoming mail - the sender of the mail need not be aware/agree to it being read. There is novel here.
AccountKiller