Slashdot Mirror
Google Hasn't Stopped Reading Your Emails (theoutline.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: If you're a Gmail user, your messages and emails likely aren't as private as you'd think. Google reads each and every one, scanning your painfully long email chains and vacation responders in order to collect more data on you. Google uses the data gleaned from your messages in order to inform a whole host of other products and services, NBC News reported Thursday.
Though Google announced that it would stop using consumer Gmail content for ad personalization last July, the language permitting it to do so is still included in its current privacy policy, and it without a doubt still scans users emails for other purposes. Aaron Stein, a Google spokesperson, told NBC that Google also automatically extracts keyword data from users' Gmail accounts, which is then fed into machine learning programs and other products within the Google family. Stein told NBC that Google also "may analyze [email] content to customize search results, better detect spam and malware," a practice the company first announced back in 2012.
Though Google announced that it would stop using consumer Gmail content for ad personalization last July, the language permitting it to do so is still included in its current privacy policy, and it without a doubt still scans users emails for other purposes. Aaron Stein, a Google spokesperson, told NBC that Google also automatically extracts keyword data from users' Gmail accounts, which is then fed into machine learning programs and other products within the Google family. Stein told NBC that Google also "may analyze [email] content to customize search results, better detect spam and malware," a practice the company first announced back in 2012.
They just optimized it to "be evil".
If you aren't running the mail server, then someone, somewhere is reading your email. Maybe they aren't right now, but they are a rogue sysadmin, data breach or buyout from doing so retroactively.
It's like having a conversation in public. If you want private communication, email is not and has never been that.
My memory of signing up for Gmail was that Google was quite open about using the data anonymously for various purposes, a position more honest than many others who do the same without the courtesy of saying so.
Note the weasel words, Google just said they stopped scanning the mail for a very narrow specific purpose. They did NOT say they stopped scanning email, they still scan mails for other unspecified purpose.
And, of course, what they collected during that scan, they can apply to ad personalizaton again, any time in the future. That's the key problem, once they got your data, you have no way of getting it back.
That's why laws like GDPR is important, it prevent your data from being used for different purpose after companies like Google got their hands on them.
Oliver.
Like almost all email services they scan for stuff like viruses and auto-reply loops. Google also does spam filtering and phishing detection, like almost everyone.
Most users would probably be upset if they didn't.
Then you have their promise not to mine emails for advertising purposes. The language is still in the privacy policy... But no evidence they are still doing it. If they were, they would be in serious legal difficulty so I'd hope some evidence would be found.
Basically it's bullshit, nothing to see here.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
yes they do, the difference here is google reads it to leverage the content for their own purposes not to necessarily directly assist you with your email management.
I think that was for the education accounts, not the standard accounts. The whole point of Gmail was to scan your email. Other providers injected ads into your outgoing emails. Google didn't do that. They were up front about this when they created the service. You get 1GB of free email storage in exchange for us scanning your email. The standard inbox size at the time was 10-100MB. People jumped onto Gmail invites as fast as they could find them.
The educational accounts weren't supposed to be scanned as that would violate some privacy laws regarding grades. Seems no one cared to enforce it.
For those of us alive at the time, this was common knowledge. I guess for everyone else, you would have had to look into it to find out. Instead you assumed too much and deceived yourself about the services you chose to use (unless your college forced you). Did you know your name may be printed next to your phone number and mailed to most houses in your area once a year?