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Well I think a lot of where Google crosses the line is becoming clearer now. For example, personalized ads in gmail. Try to opt-out of personalized ads in gma

Well I think a lot of where Google crosses the line is becoming clearer now. For example, personalized ads in gmail. Try to opt-out of personalized ads in gmail, seriously go and try it. You can click the button, but they won't actually opt you out. At least not how you'd expect. You'll still get personalized ads, but they just use a different heuristic for how to personalize (based on the current email). How hard is it to not personalize my ads at all? It would be easy. But Google has opted to add value to advertisers over their users. This alone is one reason why I'm thinking of leaving gmail. Haven't made the switch yet, but I'm seriously considering it.

ramblerman 15y ago
This has been a core facet of gmail for years. You get free email + storage - they post contextual ads on the right. The problem people are discussing here, has nothing to do with some heuristic that runs against your email. It's the advent of the google profile, where all your online searches, mails, posts, rss feeds, and mobile phone now tie together in one place, and google is changing the terms. >> Haven't made the switch yet, but I'm seriously considering it. Yeah... sure
- kenjackson 15y ago
  The problem people are discussing here, has nothing to do with some heuristic that runs against your email. It's the advent of the google profile, where all your online searches, mails, posts, rss feeds, and mobile phone now tie together in one place, and google is changing the terms. I'm talking about something else. I'm talking specifically about the "option" of opting out of personalized (and there is a well hidden option that Google has for this), but it only changes the algorithm. You still get personalized ads. When I signed up for GMail when it first opened, this was not the case. >> Haven't made the switch yet, but I'm seriously considering it. Yeah... sure Is this hard to believe? I just created a hotmail account. I need to try it on all my devices first. And then of course get my forwarding accounts switched to it. If all goes well I'll switch. The main concern is lack of imap so I'll use Exchange ActiveSync -- but since I don't generally use that today, I need to make sure it works fine. But there was a time when GMail was untouchable. Now its a service I can't wait to get off of.

ramblerman 15y ago

This has been a core facet of gmail for years. You get free email + storage - they post contextual ads on the right. The problem people are discussing here, has nothing to do with some heuristic that runs against your email. It's the advent of the google profile, where all your online searches, mails, posts, rss feeds, and mobile phone now tie together in one place, and google is changing the terms. >> Haven't made the switch yet, but I'm seriously considering it. Yeah... sure

kenjackson 15y ago
The problem people are discussing here, has nothing to do with some heuristic that runs against your email. It's the advent of the google profile, where all your online searches, mails, posts, rss feeds, and mobile phone now tie together in one place, and google is changing the terms. I'm talking about something else. I'm talking specifically about the "option" of opting out of personalized (and there is a well hidden option that Google has for this), but it only changes the algorithm. You still get personalized ads. When I signed up for GMail when it first opened, this was not the case. >> Haven't made the switch yet, but I'm seriously considering it. Yeah... sure Is this hard to believe? I just created a hotmail account. I need to try it on all my devices first. And then of course get my forwarding accounts switched to it. If all goes well I'll switch. The main concern is lack of imap so I'll use Exchange ActiveSync -- but since I don't generally use that today, I need to make sure it works fine. But there was a time when GMail was untouchable. Now its a service I can't wait to get off of.