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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.

2 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Calendaring by Zaelath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If I don't want Google to read my email I'll encrypt it, meanwhile I mostly want them to read it so they can do my calendaring for me... If they can get some deep AI insight from the rest of the spam and shipping receipts in there, good luck to them.

    1. Re:Calendaring by alex67500 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This. Exactly this. I almost missed a flight because I'd forgotten I was booked on the earlier one, but their reminder saved me.

      For the rest, they know what I spend money on, and their ads are still irrelevant. So either their AI isn't very good yet, or they don't actually link them to the ads I see.