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The 28 organizations are voicing their concerns about Google’s plan to scan the text of all incoming messages for the purposes of ad placement, noting that the scanning of confidential email for inserting third party ad content violates the implicit trust of an email service provider.
Open Letter to Google to Suspend Gmail [privacyrights.org]
Email doesn't just affect the person with an account but all the people they receive email from.
Further because of email forwarding, as a sender I have no idea if my email will ultimately end up in a gmail account.
Email doesn't just affect the person with an account but all the people they receive email from.
whoa!
Yeah, GMail is far far worse than Ozone abuse and cancer twilight. You wont get my credit card # to make a purchase from your site, if i use gmail account. would you? :)
There in lies the rub. If we correspond to your Gmail account, we have not signed nor agreed to anything at all.
recap:
a) there are no privacy laws applicable to email in this case.
b) email is not extended any protection from wire tapping laws. Just the opposite in fact - the govt can read your email at will - and does.
c) ISP spam scanners already scour/read your email several times.
d) not much new here except the tagging of ads to keywords found in email.
e) what is new here, is the creep/sock drawer/ it is evil factor.
a) there are no privacy laws applicable in this case
Europeans seem to think there are issues there.
d) not much new here except the tagging of ads to keywords found in email.
e) what is new here, is the creep/sock drawer/ it is evil factor.
Yes, users will click on the ads - once they are 'done with email' and bored and don't know what to do next, or curiousity might make them click on ads (e.g. to see how much the car a friend bought costs).
The only way it would make sense would be to display the mail and have links on the right to initiate sponsor/web searches e.g. if somebody received email from a friend about a new Lexus sports car:
Search Sponsors and the Web on:
- 'Lexus'
- 'Car Dealers in New York, NY'
- 'Auto Repair East Coast'
That would be much more useful and would make google users and adwords customers happy without google doing evil.
For me the killer argument against GMail is that users don't have any interest in ecommerce while reading email.
The fact that spammers are as rich as they are would tend to disprove that blanket generalization.
I tend to agree. I have enough ecommerce in my inbox.
Another question since this seems to be unclear: who parses (reads) the emails to detect the topic and to target the ads? Pigeons? Phd's? Or even machines?
>The fact that spammers are as rich as they are would tend to disprove that blanket generalization.
And those who click attachements love to receive attachements, too?
The fact that spammers are as rich as they are would tend to disprove that blanket generalization.
let's guess they make $50-$100M combined/year - that's not that much considering that they are wasting 50% of all email traffic.
Some of the spammers have to go to prison and google will go where it belongs to if it does not drop the idea of showing intrusive 'ads' next to people's private thoughts and property.
My suggestion to google:
- after all GMail with 1GB storage and index is an awesome idea - as long as there are no ads - launch GMail without ads and keep it adfree.
- provide a useful, fast service. Users will thank you, 'stick' and move from Y/MSN over to google gmail. They will be using G search and generate $ once they have the desire to purchase something.
=> it will not generate billions of $ right away but will make more $ in the long run and most of all will not ruin Google's image.
Email doesn't just affect the person with an account but all the people they receive email from.
Precisely why it is your responsibility to decide what you write in an email.
The problem these days is that too many people just don't want to take responsibility for themselves anymore!
Further because of email forwarding, as a sender I have no idea if my email will ultimately end up in a gmail account.
For me the killer argument against GMail is that users don't have any interest in ecommerce while reading email.
Personally, when I get an e-mail newsletter about Lindy Hop, I'd enjoy seeing some unobtrusive ads on the righthand side of the screen about discount dancewear or cool swing dance videos, etc. That's a plus for me (and, I bet, for millions of others), not a disadvantage.
Another question since this seems to be unclear: who parses (reads) the emails to detect the topic and to target the ads? Pigeons? Phd's? Or even machines?
Who programs robots? Who determines if the ads shown are indeed relevant?
One issue that Google should consider; however, is that they'll need to take a look at email and the corresponding ads to make sure that the ad targeter is working properly.
And speaking of AdSense, I do have to respectfully agree with others who took issue of the comparison of AdSense with the Gmail ad-showing. It doesn't seem like apples and apples to me, either.
The problem these days is that too many people just don't want to take responsibility for themselves anymore!
Why should they think they have the right to store my mails to you if I dont sign up to it.
There is a trust relationship with my email provider that at the very least means that they will not sell the content of my emails for commercial gain.
Several people here assumed that ads were actually inserted into email
I am not so worried about the privacy issues but, has Google looked at the concerns regarding targetted advertizing generally, specifically the fact that if somebody sends an email from a non gmail account, their content will be mined for advertizing, but they have no idea of this?
With Gmail you have essentially announced your intention to violate privacy in order for commercial gain.You speak of commercial gain as though it's somehow a circumstance which heightens the evilness of 'privacy' invasions. Why? When you surf on the net, your IP address is recorded in Web logs around the world, and your hit (maybe even city name or ISP name and browser language, etc.) is added up to give a number that results in potential ad revenues. Your Web surfing is resulting in MONEY for companies! Without your permission, too. Information may want to be free, but bandwidth and storage and lots of nice Internet things we take for granted cost money.
the sorts of profiling and information routinely collected or able to be collected by Google are way beyond what the average surfer would find acceptable.
But that doesn't change the fact that our crucial rights to privacy should not be hijacked by companies whose aim is to profit from exploiting those rights.
Indeed. It is telling that the dangerous precedent Google are attempting to set is likely to be taken up by other companies, some of whom will doubtless try and push this further.
Google has the POTENTIAL to do lots of horrible stuff. They could pick random e-mails, and post the funniest/most-pathetic e-mails in a forum somewhere. Lonely Google engineers could surreptiously search for pictures being sent or received of Hot Babes(tm). So many possibilities, so little time! But in this world, we judge companies based upon their past actions, or at least we should. Microsoft has been convicted on all sorts of nasty stuff. Google, as far as I know, has not. I'm not even aware of a single case in which Google has shared someone's search history with a law enforcement agent, or volunteered to do so.
Google is, I still honestly believe, a Good Company. I trust them, and have seen no reason not to. All this talk of well, they COULD do this, they COULD do that... ack! :¦ And the sky could fall tomorrow.
People don't like to have things "thrown in their face" when reading an email
If I write you a long rambling mail (which would be par for the course) how will they know which paragraph contains references to something I would actually want to search for?
Besides the fact that most spam filtering is optional and benevolent, scanning email content for the purpose of advertiser profit (who incidentally, will then know what words in your email triggered the ad) is not comparable to blocking unwanted or malicious content.
The Gmail system is in itself unacceptable from a consumer privacy point of view.
will the attachment size be limited
I want to know whether a private company should be allowed to access the content of personal emails for profit. And whether this should be a legitimised activity and made acceptable for other companies to do.
The bottom line is that the only reason this is even a story in the first place is because fear mongering makes good copy.
The 28 organizations are voicing their concerns...
One last thing: I do agree Google could and should have handled much of this (and other Gmail introduction issues) better. They should have clearly predicted and PROACTIVELY defused much of this mess, especially with regards to privacy-hyper-sensitive Europe. Google's got some incredibly smart people (I know... I'm friends with lots of 'em, and I suppose I should have started off with that as a disclaimer :D)... but clearly, some folks seemed to have dropped the ball when it comes to Gmail PR and marketing :(
GoogleGuy wrote, tantalizingly:
I made most of the points I wanted to earlier, but I do think that after people try it out, they'll find that they like Gmail. I could give more examples of where things like the Related Links feature made a big improvement in the user experience, but I think most people will want to try it out and decide for themselves what they think of it.
In the meantime, could ya ask the G powers that be to quit teasing us, and remove (for now) the statements on the New Accounts [google.com] pages that promise that Google Accounts currently give access to services including Gmail? ;)
Spot on. It's about public perception which is a very real thing. I think Google will only fuel resistance to it's image with this. It smells slightly of "evil" which is ironic from a company that tries to bill itself as the opposite. That is the perception anyway.
You asked "Did anyone happen to actually absorb which 28 organizations / people are protesting?
- Many groups I've never heard of."
I agree I looked at the organizations and only recoginized one signatory. If I am not mistaken Daniel Brandt is known as anti-Google so it did ring alarm bells. It occurred to me that Google would dismiss a letter raising genuine concerns, because it was only those with an axe to grind, who would have seized on any opportunity to complain. I didn't have much time so I looked into one of the European Privacy groups which has been around long before Google and it seemed respectable enough. Another one of the signatories is affiliated with Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility which appears to be a respected organization. I don't see why they would conspire against Google ( I found it interesting that there appears to be a connection between "Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility" and Larry Page's brother Carl - if you do a search you will find he edited a CPSR newsletter and seems to be a member).
It is not just privacy-hyper-sensitive Europeans who are protesting against some of gmail's features and I don't think that this should be portrayed as a bizarre "American vs European" issue. Nevertheless I have noted a difference in the focus of objections for both ( even on this board I think I can detect a divergence in focus or concerns between posters I assume to be American and those I figure to be European (but I also know that I shouldn't assume!)). Nevertheless, the fact that there are so many different reasons for objecting to some of these features accentuates how Google hasn't just got it wrong with the Europeans!
"Google is, I still honestly believe, a Good Company. I trust them."
I agree that Google is a Good Company and I don't think that they had any devious masterplan, but I do think that they have been misguided and perhaps naive with Gmail. The learning curve transition between providing search and email is more than a technological one, and I think that they should have researched the non-technological implications more thoroughly. I love Google's search facilities and admit that the API has enriched my life but I will not sign up for gmail as things now stand. I did ask myself whether Google has been victim of their own success. If a smaller company had created gmail,would it have created as much controversy? Probably not, but personally I would still have a problem with the targetted advertizing bit, regardless. One of the reasons that Google's status as a multi-million dollar company matters is that once they do this, Microsoft and Yahoo etc. are sure to follow suit with something even worse. "All is changed, changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born". Google's maxim of "do no evil" has meant that it is under more scrutiny than companies whose sole aim is to "make more money". Furthermore, because it is Google, more people will use it than would have otherwise, so like it or not it is here to stay.
Ironically,some good can come out of this controversy as it brings into sharper focus how little we (in my case anyway) know about our rights or responsibilities with regards to email usage. For instance, if I live in Europe and choose to use a U.S-based service such as Gmail,hotmail or Yahoo, which laws apply when I send an email? U.S law, EU law or the law of my particular country? I had no idea there were substantial differences between European and U.S data privacy laws. I have never thought of this before, which reflects badly on me. Furthermore, people should not lose sight of the fact that currently gmail is on a trial run basis. Companies frequently alter their product because of concerns raised in this phase, so it would not be a huge deal for Google to alter GMail before general release. It would be nice to know whether Google is taking any of our concerns on board before this whole thing snowballs and creates antagonism or suspicions. The longer they wait before making official statements, the longer these arguments will continue.
I hate to sound like a broken record so...
I will try to keep my mails shorter and more succinct.
I will try to keep my mails shorter and more succinct.
I will try to keep my mails shorter and more succinct.
With Kindest Regards
Please Be Gentle
A few of the emails I send are work-related (Google ads about HPLC? Cloning tools? Apoptosis? Gimme a break), and the rest is idle chit chat (Google ads on "when and where we're going to meet next", jokes).
How many emails do I send that are related to my hobbies or potential purchases? Practically none! GMail will never guess, and be way-off-the-mark 99% of the time.
Why couldn't GMail ask, upon signup, what my interests are, and be transparent as usual as to their intentions of giving me relevant advertising? Not just a few vague boxes or broad categories to click. Let me key in some serious keywords, and give me plenty of flexibility. Let me add as few or as many as I want.
I know what topics might incite some productive clicking on my part. Topics that continue to interest me and for which I have made online purchases in the past. Give me birdwatching, gardening, orchids, stained glass, hummingbirds, bats, Southwest travel, etc
I'd actually be interested, and welcome it rather than view it as an intrusion.
That sure would be a step up over hotmail's popups for online matchmakers.
This way you use Gmail to tell Google what you want to receiving. Don’t use it for mail.
Not quit the way Google indented it to work, but you cant get it all, ;-))
Hm ... this made me thinking. Has it already been mentioned how google tracks the clicks on gmail ads? I guess, they would be able to know WHO actually clicked on an ad ... not what ip or what user agent but WHO personally. Would this be something new or something other personalized services already do?
Well, this sounds a bit pathetic, don't you think!?
Everybody would know about my whole life if i'd tell em about my whole life.
But would Google actually track the account for each click? Will there be an id or something in the AdSenseForGMail links that identifies the clicker?
GG , its good to be open in your TOS but being too open will confuse users like your statement about "deleting mails" ...many assumed google will simply retain mails indefinitely even if deleted
But in reality google merely stated the technical problems in deleteting all the instances of a mail at the same instant the 'delete' button is clicked ...this is same for yahoo and hotmail and other providers , but they dont talk about it in their TOS :)
As i said dont be too open it confuses users and give food for conspiracy theorists!
What Google needs immediately is a new legal strategy!
i always hear the best strategy to react to an false but adverse PR is to just ignore it eventually the news people will become bored and move to other "hot" issues ...its like the old saying "Time will cure anything"
Also google you have to rethink about not attaching a tagline in each outgoing mail - this was the single important marketing tool that helped hotmail to gain hundreds of millions of subscribers with just 50k marketing budget! - That even resulted in the term "Viral Marketing"
So, I will stick with one issue here, that of using my intellectual property without my consent.
I find it is disingenuous to compare scanning my proprietary information to determine ad targetting with the display of some random banner ad.
Sure I might not like the brand associations of some banner ads that might be next to an email I sent that someone reads in Yahoo! Mail, but they are so far off that I do not worry. I do not think bus bench advertisers worry who is going to sit on the bench.
If Yahoo! Mail, or Hotmail or anyone else starts using contents of my email to target these ad banners, then I will voice objections.
It is a much different matter if they actually use the contents of my email rather than just the fact that there is something in the middle of the page that they can put advertising around.
An authorized use of intellectual property is what is referred to as a copyright violation. As as I know in all but about three countries in the world copyright infringement is a civil violation.
But in this world, we judge companies based upon their past actions, or at least we should. Microsoft has been convicted on all sorts of nasty stuff. Google, as far as I know, has not.
Amen, AdamGuy. We give trust based on what we've seen. I don't trust MSFT. Google has done nothing to lose my trust. When they say they won't save info. about what ads are shown into a profile, I have to believe them.
Now, if they violate that trust ... shame on them and they'll lose many users.
Why couldn't GMail ask, upon signup, what my interests are, and be transparent as usual as to their intentions of giving me relevant advertising? Not just a few vague boxes or broad categories to click. Let me key in some serious keywords, and give me plenty of flexibility. Let me add as few or as many as I want.
Now that is an excellent idea. Let us choose our own ads and feel free to show them all the time, as opposed to trying to guess what ads to show based on email content ... often not getting it right ... and often having to show zero ads because you couldn't figure out what to show. I'm in the market for a new Mac right now, and would love to have some Mac retailers making their best offer/pitch to me.
instead of ads they should display links on the right (e.g. if a user reads a friends email about their new Lexus Sports Car):
"The following websearches might be useful for you: Lexus, Auto Dealers, Lexus New York, NY, ..."
It's already been posted somewhere that they DO show web search links on occasion when no relevant ads are available.
Google will know about your whole life: 4 years ago you were researching student loans, last year you bought a house => G will tend/default to show 'refinance your house / get a better student loan now!' ads.
Your life may be very linear, and your computer use may be very linear, but I suspect that most Internet users are not like that. Picture the typical family with one computer in the den, and everyone in the house shares this one computer. They all do Google searches. They all click on AdWords links at times. What Dad searches and clicks on will be substantially different from what his 13-year-old daughter does.
Speaking for me alone, my 6-year-old son often uses my computer to visit NickJr.com and sites like that. And then I go read WebmasterWorld. G will fail miserably if it assumes every computer in the world is being used by one person, and I'm pretty sure the PhDs on staff are aware of that.
I will try to keep my mails shorter and more succinct.
PleaseBeGentle... you have thoughtfully reminded me that bad targeting is not simply a laughing matter. As with the earlier-reported AdSense targeting on a NY Times article about a murder case involving suitcases which resulted in Samsonite luggage ads, the juxtaposition of sensitive text with ads can understandably be seen as unpleasant. I know that Google has claimed that they will not put ads on sensitive e-mails, but... I can't see how any non-human can accurately judge "sensitivity." Unless Google's Gmail bots are unbelievably smart (smarter than their AdSense bots), it's just a matter of time before the vast number of mails from angsty-just-broke-up folks have "Single? Want a date?" ads placed next to them :¦ And yes, probably much worse stuff, too. Personally, I have thick skin; I'd still be amused, in a black-comic way. But I understand that others may not be.
Regarding Americans vs. Europeans; I've lived most of my life in America, but did live and work for a bit in Germany (Mannheim, near Heidelberg), and I also have dated a German woman. I've learned firsthand, then, just how starkly different American and European views of privacy are, and have had some sharp (but respectful) arguments with my European friends on numerous occasions. For instance, very few of my European friends have agreed to join Social Networking sites (like Tribe or Orkut), and they've instead expressed complete shock as to why any intelligent person would even THINK about sharing their private info like this. In America, on the whole, we not only tell all, we do so with a smile :)
Ironically,some good can come out of this controversy as it brings into sharper focus how little we (in my case anyway) know about our rights or responsibilities with regards to email usage. For instance, if I live in Europe and choose to use a U.S-based service such as Gmail,hotmail or Yahoo, which laws apply when I send an email? U.S law, EU law or the law of my particular country?
I actually studied intellectual property issues extensively in law school, and while that's now half-a-decade back (and much has changed), I agree that the issues are amazingly complex and very interesting! I even took a seminar on International Intellectual Property Law, and I should see if I can find the paper I wrote :D.
I guess, they would be able to know WHO actually clicked on an ad
An authorized use of intellectual property is what is referred to as a copyright violation. As as I know in all but about three countries in the world copyright infringement is a civil violation.
and
the internet users sending email to an @gmail address never gave consent to have their intellectual property used for advertising purposes - they were also never paid a portion of the profit and might claim that later. What will happen is that a legal organization will collect millions of electronic signatures of internet users who sent email to an @gmail address and who were "never paid" for their work. The US is known to be very strict when it comes to 'unpaid wages' and related issues.
I respectfully would suggest that both of these are improper interpretations of intellectual property rights and restrictions. You may indeed have a 'copyright' on the mails you write, but you do not have an EXCLUSIVE and TOTAL right to control how they are used. By sending e-mail, you grant a great many rights (transit, duplication, storage, even republication to some extent). I believe Google's scanning of your mails for contextual ad purposes is no different, legally, than having your mail scanned for viruses, etc. After all, anti-virus and anti-spam vendors aren't doing these things without profit incentives, are they? You are, if perhaps more indirectly, contributing to MANY peoples' / companies' profits via your e-mail.
* * *
One of the ideas expressed in this forum that I've really liked is the concept of 'guided relevance.' Specifically, I would also like the ability to give Google some hints about what my interests are, so that it could balance what it understands to be the issues of incoming e-mails and what my actual interests are, in context. That way, for instance, when I got e-mail talking about shoes, Google wouldn't just put up ads for shoes, but instead, Lindy Hop clothing & accessories, since it would know I'm a swing dancer. Similarly, if a friend wrote me about his golfing in Costa Rica, Google would then show me ads about travel or even about Costa Rica tourism specifically instead of golf, because it would know that I have much more interest in traveling and Latin America than I do in golf.
For what it's worth, I also wish that Google would offer this sort of 'guided relevance' in its AdSense program! I know that it'd be asking for trouble to let Webmasters directly pick which ads or ad-topics are featured, but I think a wonderfully happy medium would be allowing Webmasters to guide Google... letting them know that a particular page or set of pages is about MUSIC keyboards, not computer keyboards, for instance.
* * *
And lastly, just a quick note about my name. Though I post on 99% of forums around the net as ThatAdamGuy (sure, go ahead, Google me if you're really, really bored :D), my name is Adam. I just want to make sure that, despite the Guy in my name, it's clear I have no relation to the honorable GoogleGuy, and also am not a Google employee. :)
It is a much different matter if they actually use the contents of my email rather than just the fact that there is something in the middle of the page that they can put advertising around.An authorized use of intellectual property is what is referred to as a copyright violation.
That's by far the best analysis of the problem so far.
and:
You may indeed have a 'copyright' on the mails you write, but you do not have an EXCLUSIVE and TOTAL right to control how they are used.
if you write something from scratch which is solely based on your very own work you own the full copyright - and it actually might have a very significant value - imagine somebody spending 3 days on writing an article on real estate after spending $5k to research it. You might then distribute such an article (e.g. send it per email) under provisions such as:
- your work might be confidential - nobody else besides you and the recipient may read the mail.
- your work might not be used to generate any profit other than agreed on between you and the recipient of the mail.
(legal firms usually have very nice and long footers attached to emails covering all these and similar cases)
"email" would be just a means to transmit such a piece of work and I don't see how you could loose the copyright on the piece of work you created just by transmitting it per email instead of printing it out or hand writing it down and delivering per fedex, etc.
DON'T SIGN UP!
It's not YOUR decision to say whether other people should be allowed to accept those terms or not. Anyone who would urge Google to suspend GMail needs to learn how to mind their own business.
