It is a little different. The amount of information you garner from ":)" versus "Gee, I think I am going to liquidate now" are completely different. It is a m

It is a little different. The amount of information you garner from ":)" versus "Gee, I think I am going to liquidate now" are completely different. It is a matter of sentiment analysis versus content analysis. But I see why you say "it's not less intrusive". I think sentiment analysis is less intrusive, especially if you are just looking at emoticons, because they reveal less about you. The information encoded in the emoticon has less clarity. It's reasonable that you might find any amount of intrusion unacceptable though. Doesn't Google look at the contents of your (subject being gmail users) email anyway to serve ads on Gmail right now though? The scary thing is I think people would just get used to it if it were useful. Of course I think (hope) we are all engaging in this conversation assuming this will never happen.