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I remembered the discussions surrounding it when it was first released. Here's one submission on Slashdot that discussed the email scanning: https://slashdot.or

I remembered the discussions surrounding it when it was first released. Here's one submission on Slashdot that discussed the email scanning: https://slashdot.org/story/04/04/25/1438250/googles-gmail-goes-into-beta-for-blogger-users https://slashdot.org/story/04/04/25/1438250/googles-gmail-go... Here's one comment on slashdot: [0]. I have to laugh at this one [1]. It almost seems reversed these days (not quite, but kinda) I'll see if I can dig up any press releases or official Google communications about it, but with linkrot what it is, it may take a while. (EDIT: Here's Google's privacy policy when Gmail was released [2]) [0] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105335&cid=8965115 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105335&cid=8965115 [1] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105335&cid=8965194 https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105335&cid=8965194 [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20040404134002/http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/privacy.html https://web.archive.org/web/20040404134002/http://gmail.goog...

decasteve 6y ago
Much has changed in the nature of the beast but you're right, the terms do state the obvious. Still feels sinister. Reading those old comments and privacy policy brought so much flooding back to me. The value proposition has changed but not in the way that was feared at the time. We're certainly inundated with ads to a greater degree than it was at the time. They never turned around and charged for it but they certainly require a lot more personal information to have an account these days. There was so much hate for Microsoft but it was wishful thinking that Google would turn out differently.