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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.
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.
Google's completely forgotten about "Do no evil."
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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.
a practice the company first announced back in 2012.
That's an awfully charitable way to describe it... My recollection is that they denied reading people's email for years and in 2012 someone was finally able to prove this so conclusively that Google had to fess up, but naturally felt the need to to point out that this invasion of peoples' privacy was done by "algorithms" and not by people in it's admission of guilt.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
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.
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.