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The technical ability to view the contents of an email and apply spam-filtering decision is meaningfully different from intentionally retaining that information
by everdrive 7y ago
The technical ability to view the contents of an email and apply spam-filtering decision is meaningfully different from intentionally retaining that information and parsing it into various marketing databases, though. I understand where you're coming from, though. Once a provider can view the contents of your email for normal functions (such as spam filtering) the user would never know if that provider was doing something like Google is.
This is a "most caution" approach, and isn't without merit, but it's also not valid to assume all email providers are doing this simply because it's technologically possible.
- greiskul 7y agoAnd why is it valid to assume Google is doing this "parsing it into various marketing databases", where the only evidence about that is Google explicitly saying they don't do that? They used to scan email for relevant ads (and only next to the email). They decided that was wrong, and stopped doing that. What evidence do we have that they are lying?
- everdrive 7y agoI'm confused. Is the posted article not a direct counter-example? Google is scanning your email contents and at least, cataloging your purchases.
- muro 7y agoVisible only to you.
- falcolas 7y agoAnd Google. To help build out their profile of who you are and what you buy. To increase the value of you as a target for advertisers when you click on a page that uses Google as an ad broker.
- greiskul 7y agoOk, any sources on Google doing that? Cause the article doesn't support that at all, and Google says it doesn't do that. Or do you disagree with the statement "also not valid to assume all email providers are doing this simply because it's technologically possible", and just assume Google is always malicious because it could be malicious?
- joshuamorton 7y agoThere's no requirement that data that is parsed get fed into a model or algorithm to sell you stuff. Note that this article doesn't make any concrete claims about nefarious actions (that's because there aren't any).