Slashdot Mirror
MS Targets Google With Another Smear Campaign
walterbyrd writes with news that Microsoft's PR department has started a campaign to convince Gmail users that Google reads your personal emails, referring to Google's automated method of scanning emails for keywords to generate supposedly relevant advertising.
"The gist of the scare campaign is that Google is a scary, scary company that reads your private emails in order to send you targeted ads. 'Even if you don't use Gmail, if you send email to someone who does, Google goes through those emails to generate advertising revenue too,' Microsoft warns in material sent to reporters. Oh, and Microsoft points out that six class-action lawsuits have been filed against Google over this issue, and asks people to sign a petition 'to tell Google to stop going through your personal email messages.'"
Is it a "Smear Campaign" if it's true?
Pretty "slanted" summary, but I guess this is Slashdot and the story is about Microsoft.
Now, who's more evil? Google or Microsoft? Hard to tell around here sometimes...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Google does scan your emails for keywords. That information may be stored or revealed in any number of ways.
What I'd like from MSFT: a guarantee (legal contract) that MSFT will not do the same on the new Outlook.com.
Futurist Traditionalism
Simple --- sign up with Microsoft's email service so that Microsoft can rummage through your emails instead of google.
Google does scan your emails for keywords. That information may be stored or revealed in any number of ways.
I think it's more than a bit disingenuous because the video has this person's eyes superimposed over your e-mail while mischievous music plays in the background. We all know that it's not a person reading the e-mails, it's software doing latent semantic indexing or some such algorithm.
They might not be lying but they are deceiving. Tell me how my Hotmail knows how to classify incoming e-mails as spam again? OH! You're running a Bayesian classification algorithm and building word statistics out of my e-mail?! They're reading my e-mails! Cue judging eyeballs over my e-mail with corny music.
Note: I'm not defending Google but I'm pretty sure that some type of software runs some sort of algorithm on your e-mails if you go through any reputable major e-mail provider. Hell, my debian postfix server is attached to a bunch of algorithmic open source programs to do just that!
My work here is dung.
"Microsoft's PR department has started a campaign to convince Gmail users that Google reads your personal emails, referring to Google's automated method of scanning emails for keywords to generate supposedly relevant advertising".
...
Exactly the same way that Windows Live Hotmail does it
"We use your information to inform you of other products or services offered by Microsoft and its affiliates, and to send you relevant survey invitations related to Microsoft services." link
AccountKiller
Is it a "Smear Campaign" if it's true?
Well, it's not entirely true. I think most people consider the definition of reading to mean "looked" at and that it is implicitly a human that is reading your e-mail in this case. The eyes superimposed in the first video imply this. What's actually happening is that your e-mail is being loaded into memory and parsed to build an index associated with some key that is associated with you and that is being stored. This data is then used to serve targeted ads. Do you really think that a person is involved at any point so far? Do you really think there's a Google employee looking over raw table data and rubbing one out when he sees that "ky jelly" is associated with user 57234765235 at a rate of 0.0054% of the time with a high precision value? Really? Show me a mail service provider that neither loads your e-mail into memory (alias "reads" it) nor stores it in a database and I'll show you extraterrestrial beings.
Pretty "slanted" summary, but I guess this is Slashdot and the story is about Microsoft.
Really? Where are Google's commercials of equal proportions? I guarantee you they would make for a story just like this.
Now, who's more evil? Google or Microsoft? Hard to tell around here sometimes...
Just because one evil is smearing another evil of less, equal or greater proportions doesn't make it not a smear campaign! This is exactly what it is! Disingenuous advertising meant to unduly spread uncertainty and deceit! How does Microsoft detect spam? The same damn way!
My work here is dung.
It's supposed to look that way. Some people will think it's more legitimate if it doesn't look like a big money production. Like it's coming from the little guy and not a competing mega corporation.
Has anyone looked at the Privacy link at the bottom of the login screen for outlook.com?
http://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/default.mspx
Quoting here: "Uses of Information: Additional Details
We use the information we collect to provide the services you request. Our services may include the display of personalized content and advertising.
We use your information to inform you of other products or services offered by Microsoft and its affiliates, and to send you relevant survey invitations related to Microsoft services.
We do not sell, rent, or lease our customer lists to third parties. In order to help provide our services, we occasionally provide information to other companies that work on our behalf."
So they can personalize content and advertising, send you offers, and provide it to other companies.
s/Google Mail/outlook.com/ and the claims appear to be the same.
Just in case anybody is dumb enough to listen to you, no, that is nonsense. The 'basic' interface is just that, an *interface*, it has no effect on how Google's servers handle your mail, just on how it is displayed to you.
Not that I care, it's a post-privacy society, get over it.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Google might even change it's policy and let humans read your e-mails.
So might Microsoft in their cloud hosting service! ...Your point?
You gave them permission. How do do you know what google will do int he next ten years?
Once again you gave the same permission to Microsoft, specifically the clause that lets them change TOS at will with your only recourse being to stop using the service.
Maybe some credit agency will pay them $100 per user account to see all your e-mails.
Mean while microsoft is actually promising in their user agreement that they will never ever do that to you. There's thus a big difference.
Of course, that same user agreement also give Microsoft the option of changing those rules at their convenience, and the burden is on you to discover the change, not on them to reveal it.
Who did what now?
Microsoft actually does the exact same thing. So where is the 1000 post thread about it?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
In the states, our foremost vital constitutional right is that of free speech, which means you can say that your competition sucks if you like. Or not say it. Or say yours is great. Or say both. Or neither.
...the end is definitely fucking neigh for google
Why? Is someone giving Sergei a pony?
That is all.
Yes, and we all have a "sex inspector" that goes to every house and takes notes. If we don't have enough quality sex, we'll receive "death points". These will be taken into account by the death panels when they decide if we're entitled to medical treatment in a public hospital.
But don't worry, we have plenty of time to watch TV during our 6 month vacation. And we spend the rest of the year on strike, so we get to watch a lot of it. It's just that we don't have Cheetos and Budwiser while watching TV. Instead we have goat cheese and red wine.
Wrong. I am the supplier of the inputs for the product that is being packaged by Google and sold to advertisers, and Gmail is (one of many parts of) the payment Google provides to me in return for providing those inputs.
If I am not satisfied that the payment is sufficient value for what Google is asking in exchange, I stop providing the inputs and reject the payment.