No...it wasn't...and there's no need to insinuate paranoia on my part.

Read the conditions.

Use cognitive skills.

Understand what privacy you are willing to dispense with.

I guess I forgot the happy smileys to denote my humor in that post.


Anyway, there's no need to insinuate my blind acceptance that all is sunshine and puppy farts and that I haven't read what's what. I assume your issue with gmail is this:

We serve highly relevant ads and other information as part of the service using our unique content-targeting technology. No human reads your email to target ads or related information to you without your consent.

Of course I understand that this must all be taken with a grain of salt and trust with them but taken for what it says, I don't see the invasion of privacy.

Or maybe it's this:

We collect limited account information and store and maintain your account and email messages on our secure servers.

Wincustomize collects and store the same info.

Ok, I have 5. Send e-mail to hingelicker@gmail.com, first 5 get one each.

Email
Thanks

Email
thanks

farkusmarkus.....look a little more closely.  Cursory references will not suffice.

sorry

Fact: Regardless of whether or not you choose to have a Gmail account you may not necessarily remain untouched by it simply by not having an account yourself. It is perfectly possible to set up other accounts to forward to Gmail addresses and archive your mail if an individual wishes to do so. So by all means refuse to respond to a G-mail address, but don't assume your communication doesn't end up as an archived mail anyway.

Its been a while since I looked at it, but I believe there was a draft bill going in front of the California Senate launched by a Democrat (Americans will hopefully forgive any loose terminology). The arguments for and against Gmail will probably be more usefully understood from articles gained from making searches related to this Bill.

As I've said before in different posts I appreciate the gut level concerns that are raised by the 'in your face' scanning. I had these concerns myself, but at the same time I couldn't reconcile that with doing something so potentially damaging to the Google brand at the same time as wanting to float stock. It is very easy to set up a Gmail account using any other e-mail address you have access to, any name you care to give and no further personal information is asked for. Obviously it can be accessed from any on-line web portal so you never even have to use your own machine. Gmails can be permanently deleted (albeit as permanently as we're led to believe they are ever deleted anywhere).

If the argument is that all electronic scanning of e-mail should be ceased then the words sticky and wicket will commence to set themselves on an unfortunate collision course.

The adverts themselves are perhaps a trickier issue for those that actively use G-mail. There is the capacity within the system for inappropriately 'chosen' adverts to be placed in the field. On the other hand I suspect there will be at least one site set up that revels in some of the funnier juxtapositions that will occur. Those who choose not to have G-mail will presumably never have to see them first hand.

I also recall that there are concerns about e-mails being redefined after 180 days or thereabouts giving some authorities easier access to these (haven't recently researched this but the gist is valid I think). However this is unlikely to be an issue for most normal people and if the redefinition wasn't triggered the 'authorities' would probably still gain access through other legal routes if they could show 'just cause'.

One last aside, at least in the UK the use of e-mail in relation to our own private health records seems to be more of an immediate concern. Its surprising how information about us that we aren't even necessarily aware of flies around the world in the name of cost cutting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1285712,00.html

Wow - look at all those words and some of them were actually in order.
[Message Edited]

Nice rebuttal there, Jafo. Since I lack the cognitive skills to tell my left shoe from my right, would you be so kind as to point me to the section of the privacy policy that spells out the gross violation?

Understand this isn't about point-scoring. We all of us make choices on the basis of various platforms including that of gain over perceived risk. I would always encourage the taking of gift horses by the scruff of the neck in order to look them squarely in the mouth (if thats at all possible).

I have simply looked at the gain and risk for myself and found it, when taken apart and put in the context of the real world, to be so negligable a variation of existing technology and provision as not to be an issue for me.

I do feel for those that have an inherent dislike for this particular type of commercialisation particularly as it is thrust daily into the spotlight, as G-mail runs apace it must feel increasingly like being Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

It always serves best IMHO that we either offer information or opinions honestly and with our prime motive being that of sharing in a way we feel others may benefit from. When we seek to best someone for its own sake it becomes personal and lessens the value or respect with which we can hope our opinions be met. Particularly as the passing of time may prove us wrong. I've been lucky in that respect, time has treated me well and I've normally not had to wait too long to be proved wrong

In closing farkusmarkus it might be also be useful to remember that the toes you tread on today might well be attached to the butt you need to kiss tomorrow

Now my brain is very tired, and my butt is very sore on account of trying to sit on the fence at the same time as taking a view. A precarious position not to be recommended, though not as precarious as trying to distill truth from a policy document.
[Message Edited]

If anybody has gMail invites to give away, please do it here. No need to open dozens of threads for the same thing.

I'm totally on the same page with you, Journeyman. I weighed the pros and cons myself, found that it's basically just AdSense crawling my emails and figured it's not much worse (and easier to ignore) than the banner ads served up by yahoo mail. But since I didn't go down to Google HQ and interview the engineers, that's all cursory, mind you.

It may seem very much that I'm trying to score points in a pissing batch by poking WC's bear but actually I'd just like to know why he finds gmail so invasive without him throwing out 5 dollar words-of-the-day. If he does so and proves me to be completely wrong, I will be the first to start a new thread praising the glory that is Jafo. If he chooses to exhile me for it, I can't stop him.

First issue....one expects mail will be read coming and going, ergo anyone NOT sucked into the Gmail hysteria who responds to a Gmail sourced account will have their privacy commercially violated.

The Telecommunications Act controls the who, what and why of data/information transmission...via Radio [all bands] Television [all forms] and Telephony [includes email].

Consent is given/extracted to people such as the CIA to 'watch' these lines of communication....not some commercial entity.

I've given up on privacy a long time ago as far as communications go. My phone lines (just as everybody's) may/are monitored by the secret services (not paranoia, they admitedly have been monitoring random phone lines for years).

As for Gmail, my gmails are read by nobody else but who they are destined to. Software scanning for keywords is in my book not violating my privacy.  My privacy is violated by way worse than that every single day by cameras and microphones here,there and everywhere.

I'm almost sure that this whole privacy thing against GMail was started by Microsoft to sabotage Google's reputation.  It's almost ridiculous how out of proportion this has been blown.

Well, personally I don't have anything to hide in my emails.. if they want to read them, who cares?

"big Brother is watching' is fine and dandy if it is considered necessary for national security....9/11 and similar excuses, but having a Commercial Entity snooping to target you for advertising is repulsive at best.

No-one appears to be bemused by the 'pyramid sales' methodology of promoting Gmail....the 'freebie' advocated by your 'mates' is worse than the spruiking of the Time Share marketeers.

If something 'appears' too good to be true it usually is.

This time, you are required to consent to a private individual's access to your 'private' communications for THEIR Commercial gain, not yours.

Once the 'foot is in the door' you will have a hard time arguing your legal right to privacy in other walks of life......the Lawyer's argument will go ...'you clearly are not 'that' concerned with data privacy as you have consented to its waiving with respect to Gmail, so it flows naturally to any other email accounts as well as they contain equivalent information and telecommunication privacy is already compromised through consent and 'required access' that no 'real' privacy SHOULD be expected.'

There is no difference to having your snail mail opened by 'Posties R Us.Org' and having a Flyer for Joe's Bar and Grill and Knocking Shop inserted because you mention in your letter you like Pizza and sex.

The concept of 'robot reading, not human reading' is laughable.

It is the Legal act of having it READ by a third party that dissolves your rights to subsequent controls.

Spying is a reality of life....long before 9/11....that is just a convenient excuse.  It can be mostly ignored as it is YOUR accepted Government of your own society and existence that is the prime source.....the price you pay for involvement /inclusion within your society.

I am not part of the Google monopoly/behemoth so I benefit not by the profiteering of the targetted advertising but only the sweetener given to the gullible....the chance to have some huge online storage...a GIG, whatever....the very same 'GIG' that they can peruse at their leisure and determine how to bombard you and your friends to whom you communicate with yet more barbed, specific advertising.

Join if you must....it's your individuality and person that is being violated.

Just do not expect everyone on the planet to even want to communicate with a compromised source and end up also feeding the Commercial coffers of Google.

If it wasn't such a clandestine attempt to invade and usurp your rights as an individual there would be no need to adopt the hysteria of peer distribution of accounts.  People would just say 'wow...great idea' and sign up individually.

Top marks to Google though.....inventing a whole new way of separating fools from their money through advertising.

Bloody brilliant.....

 

Little-known facts of Telecommunications.

At Wincustomize.com we do not accept obscene language....and people tend to get upset and argue 'free speech'.

It does not apply to communication via the 'airwaves' as the language is prohibited anyway.  Were it enforced you'd be in trouble swearing at your mum on the phone.  Were it enforced the 'recently exiled' would not be able to tell me 'where to go' in an email.

For nearly 30 years I've been a 'Communications Official' in Motor Racing...from Formula One [FIA/FISA] to MotoGP [FIM] and have abided by the rules of Telecommunication.....closed-circuit [landline] or even restricted-frequency radio transmissions are all included.

Interestingly, the FIA [in particular] records all communications for potential uses, eg, inquest, but the Act requires notification to all involved of the fact of the recording.....just as Gmail is required to tell you they are snooping also.  They just are less transparent about the details of subsequent 'use'....

Jafo, what is the difference between a spam filter "reading" your mail or a "advertisement filter" as this could be called.

There IS a big difference between a software "reading" your mail or a humain.  It's like the difference between pulling your pants down in front of the TV or doing it in the subway...

Patric....that's the simplistic response.

The reality is not distinguishing between 'robot' and 'human'...it is that they BOTH are a 'third party' intrusion.

As for 'spam filter'....the benefit is to you [and your ISP]....the benefit of the Gmail 'reader' is to Gmail and their commercial 'partners', not to you, unless your quality of life is determined by how well products are 'in your face marketed'...

So, what is it you don't like?  The fact that your emails are scanned the way a spam filter does, or the fact that you are served avertisement, as you already have just about everywhere on the web? Or somehow you don't have anything against either but you do with the combinasion of both?

Google is by far the most used search engine.  But it already serves "in your face" ads when you do a search on Google, yet people don't seem to mind that.

You may boycott GMail, but the sad truth for you is that you can't stop using email. You don't know where people you are emailing are reading your mail from... I know a few people (people from this site as a matter of fact) that forward all their email to their Google account. So you may be sending your emails to Gmail even if you don't know it.

I really think this whole thing is just too much. In French we have an expression, we say "making a storm in a glass of water", meaning blowing a small thing out of proportion.  There are way worse things on the Internet, the biggest one being spam. Heck I just changed my email account here for fun, and I swear not even 5 minutes later I already received 2 spam emails - I have this account for more than 1 month and had not yet received even a single one. I'm sure it's not Stardock's fault, there is probably a few robots somewhere who monitor this site for anything that looks like an email address.  To fight this plague, what can I do? No post my email anywhere?  But people need to be able to reach me if they need to, so there is really nothing I can do.  Compared to this, let me tell you this small GMail issue is the least of my worries.

Patric....Gmail has invented a new form of Spam.

The world didn't get better for it, it got worse.

Sure, on the surface it is irrelevant and trivial....but so often so many things are.

Confidence is the feeling you have immediately before fully understanding the situation.

Yes, the fact that email communications will unwittingly be passed on to/through a Gmail privacy intrusion is outside my personal control....but that does not mean I am going to bend over and offer my arse to corporate greed and smile while doing it....

I have 5 gmail accounts to give up

....the very same 'GIG' that they can peruse at their leisure and determine how to bombard you and your friends to whom you communicate with yet more barbed, specific advertising.

They may "bombard" me with their advertising, but my friends whom I communicate with are not "bombarded" with anything. No advertisements are included with any of the emails that are sent from gmail accounts. I still say that a few links on a web page that I can choose to ignore is in no way bombardment.

Successful advertising requires 2 things.

The right product....and the right 'target'.

Privacy invasion assists in defining both of those to the point ultimately where success is assured. ['success' being measured by acceptable tyre-kicker rate vs actual sales].

You stand on a corner wanting to sell a tie pin.

No hope.

Stand on a corner with sign 'Tie Pin for sale'.

Better chance.

Follow everyone who has a tie and ask then to buy the tie pin....better still.

Get name and addy of every person ever to have bought a tie and you locate every potential tie-pin buyer.

Marketeer's heaven.