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Google is the industry leader at monetizing search Google's stated mission is to "organize the world's information". There is tremendous power in information.

Google is the industry leader at monetizing search Google's stated mission is to "organize the world's information". There is tremendous power in information. Not so much in your own, but on the correlation of your data to everyone else's; the collective statistics about anything is where the power lies. In gmail, google reading my email tells them to sell me product x and we think that's the end of it. But there is so much more available in terms of how the aggregate masses behave with regards to product x and its correlated points. This extends right into file storage. Yes I am saying that Google will "read" your data. Even better, I'm saying that Amazon more than likely is already doing this. They're doing it not because they give a damn about you, but because they want the data points that come from the analysis of many separate instances of unrelated bits and bytes. That analysis is worth a fortune. It's a modern day gold rush. This makes perfect sense for Google.

jim-greer 16y ago
They've already got a ton of storage for end users - I imagine Gmail attachments alone are a pretty massive corpus. What this adds is information about site traffic - who's using what from where. Between Google Analytics, search trends, and toolbar, they've already got a lot of that. But I imagine that's part of the rationale for this.
deleted 16y ago
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panacea 16y ago
"In gmail, google reading my email tells them to sell me product x and we think that's the end of it." I don't want to put on a tin-foil beret, but how much revenue do they actually make from ad-words on the side of GMail? I can't imagine it's much, but then I'm probably biased in that I don't even notice they're there. The pragmatic part of me realizes GMail is a service that improves 'lock-in' to the 'Google Ecosystem'... the paranoid part of me thinks about how valuable a "search everyone's inbox" rather than a "search my inbox" feature would be.
- inerte 16y ago
  It's not about getting clicks while you're reading gmail (the adwords on the side), it's about mass gathering data about you and others. Re-read run4yourlives message. He does not say gmail tries to sell you product X, but gmail tells Google you might be in a buying mood for product X.
mleonhard 16y ago
Yes I am saying that Google will "read" your data. Even better, I'm saying that Amazon more than likely is already doing this. It would be an unforgivable breach of trust for Amazon to steal customer data that is stored in AWS. Amazon is possibly the world's most customer-oriented company. I'm sure that such behavior would not be tolerated inside the company.

jim-greer 16y ago

They've already got a ton of storage for end users - I imagine Gmail attachments alone are a pretty massive corpus. What this adds is information about site traffic - who's using what from where. Between Google Analytics, search trends, and toolbar, they've already got a lot of that. But I imagine that's part of the rationale for this.

deleted 16y ago

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panacea 16y ago

"In gmail, google reading my email tells them to sell me product x and we think that's the end of it." I don't want to put on a tin-foil beret, but how much revenue do they actually make from ad-words on the side of GMail? I can't imagine it's much, but then I'm probably biased in that I don't even notice they're there. The pragmatic part of me realizes GMail is a service that improves 'lock-in' to the 'Google Ecosystem'... the paranoid part of me thinks about how valuable a "search everyone's inbox" rather than a "search my inbox" feature would be.

inerte 16y ago
It's not about getting clicks while you're reading gmail (the adwords on the side), it's about mass gathering data about you and others. Re-read run4yourlives message. He does not say gmail tries to sell you product X, but gmail tells Google you might be in a buying mood for product X.

mleonhard 16y ago

Yes I am saying that Google will "read" your data. Even better, I'm saying that Amazon more than likely is already doing this. It would be an unforgivable breach of trust for Amazon to steal customer data that is stored in AWS. Amazon is possibly the world's most customer-oriented company. I'm sure that such behavior would not be tolerated inside the company.