4 ms·

Problems with hotmail/ms aside, I'm really glad a major corporation is going after google over the privacy issues. It's pretty hard to get people to care about

Problems with hotmail/ms aside, I'm really glad a major corporation is going after google over the privacy issues. It's pretty hard to get people to care about privacy, and one of the few ways I could imagine the issue entering into the mainstream conscious is through a major advertising budget. Even if there's some hypocrisy involved, it's a win just to get people talking about it. Here's hoping MS makes a campaign out of it. And that others follow suit.

rbanffy 15y ago
> privacy issues. Is it privacy violation when a machine matches keywords to ads? Unless the machine has some kind of consciousness, I can't see a privacy issue unless some human gets access to that information. Does this mean Microsoft free Gmail competitor, Hotmail, does not relate ads with viewer profile and screen content?
- powertower 15y ago
  I don't know how Google stores and uses the data gathered by keyword parsing and subjecting/contextualizing my emails. Or what info the advertiser/destination gets or can infer. It could be a potential privacy violation if the data is hacked, leaked, used to gather intel on my business, analyzed, backed up for eternity, accessed by 3rd party, etc. > Does this mean Microsoft free Gmail competitor, Hotmail, does not relate ads with viewer profile and screen content? Hotmail does not analyze your emails for keywords. They display ads on other, less intrusive, factors.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    You don't know how Hotmail stores your emails either, do you?
    - powertower 15y ago
      The point is that I know Google parses the contents of my emails for keywords and then transfers that data around its ad systems (at the least). And hence presents an extra way for things to go horribly wrong. I also know Hotmail (by it's own admission) does not do this. Aside from running emails through a spamfilter, I'd rather not have my email provider gather intel on me via the contents of my emails.
- rauljara 15y ago
  > I can't see a privacy issue unless some human gets access to that information. Correct me if I am wrong, but the change in google's privacy policy meant that the data google collects from google+ is shared along the data that they collect from gmail. Which, to my mind, means that the data is both stored, and able to be shared. To the best of my knowledge, they have not said that they would ever share this information with anyone else. But Google just changed their privacy policy, and I don't think there is any legal recourse should they decide to change it again. Given the financial pressures on Google to sell that information, I fear that there is strong likelihood that it will eventually be sold.
yanw 15y ago
Are you seriously commending Microsoft on a deceitful and misleading ad campaign!? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3544095 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3544095

rbanffy 15y ago

> privacy issues. Is it privacy violation when a machine matches keywords to ads? Unless the machine has some kind of consciousness, I can't see a privacy issue unless some human gets access to that information. Does this mean Microsoft free Gmail competitor, Hotmail, does not relate ads with viewer profile and screen content?

powertower 15y ago
I don't know how Google stores and uses the data gathered by keyword parsing and subjecting/contextualizing my emails. Or what info the advertiser/destination gets or can infer. It could be a potential privacy violation if the data is hacked, leaked, used to gather intel on my business, analyzed, backed up for eternity, accessed by 3rd party, etc. > Does this mean Microsoft free Gmail competitor, Hotmail, does not relate ads with viewer profile and screen content? Hotmail does not analyze your emails for keywords. They display ads on other, less intrusive, factors.
- icebraining 15y ago
  You don't know how Hotmail stores your emails either, do you?
  - powertower 15y ago
    The point is that I know Google parses the contents of my emails for keywords and then transfers that data around its ad systems (at the least). And hence presents an extra way for things to go horribly wrong. I also know Hotmail (by it's own admission) does not do this. Aside from running emails through a spamfilter, I'd rather not have my email provider gather intel on me via the contents of my emails.
rauljara 15y ago
> I can't see a privacy issue unless some human gets access to that information. Correct me if I am wrong, but the change in google's privacy policy meant that the data google collects from google+ is shared along the data that they collect from gmail. Which, to my mind, means that the data is both stored, and able to be shared. To the best of my knowledge, they have not said that they would ever share this information with anyone else. But Google just changed their privacy policy, and I don't think there is any legal recourse should they decide to change it again. Given the financial pressures on Google to sell that information, I fear that there is strong likelihood that it will eventually be sold.

yanw 15y ago

Are you seriously commending Microsoft on a deceitful and misleading ad campaign!? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3544095 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3544095