[ale] What's so special about gmail invites?

[Robert Reese]

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On 9/3/2004 at 3:46 PM Chris Ricker wrote:

>On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Robert Reese wrote:
>
>> GMail has not bothered to warn those people that send email to GMail
>users
>> that their inbound email is subject to analysis, especially since this
>> analysis is for advertising.  Nor are the recipients of email from GMail
>> users notified of this fact.  You see, the GMail user has taken the
>liberty
>> of agreeing to a privacy policy for both themselves and their recipients
>> and sendees.
>
>The tiny little point you're missing is that all this is true of email,

Actually, I haven't missed it, just bypassed it.  However, providers,
unless they *want* to be sued, are required to notify their members of this
activity.  GMail is the first, that I know of, to do this level of
scrutiny.  Any others that follow GMail's footsteps will be railed against
just as hard.  ;c)


>period.  s/Gmail/email/g on your rant. If you send me email, I can analyze
>it however I want (and make no mistake; I, or my employers, or my
>providers, do analyze it.

I doubt that your employer, or you for that matter, have the resources to
do GMail's level of analysis on each contact and email you come across.  In
fact, I doubt that your employer or you could do that level of analysis on
just one contact, unless your employer is a large marketing firm that
specializes in this exact type of data mining.  And the reason I can make
these assertions is because there is just too much data and too many
correlations.  It takes a lot of computing power and a bunch of corporate
thought police to make even a modicum of the possible connections.


> The details of what and how depend upon which address of
>mine
>you use, but I'll bet at least some of them you wouldn't like ;-).

Probably not. :c)~


>  If I
>send you email, you can analyze it however you want. There's nothing
>remotely unusual about gmail in this regard, other than that they (unlike 
>me) actually publish a cursory summary of what analysis they do.

The problem I have is not with what GMail is doing, per se.  The problems I
have are:
... They don't 'opt-in' non-gmail users.
... They don't tell senders to and recipients from gmail that the email
will be/has been analyzed.
... Opt-out isn't an option, even if they gave one.

I wouldn't have a problem with them if they only did it between GMail users
or if they offered opt-in to the senders.  Recipients should never be
analyzed until they send an email to a gmail user either by replying or by
initiating the email correspondence (which, by the way, would help
eliminate spoofed return addresses by spammers).  Once a person opts-in,
then they've been notified of the activity and have *accepted* the terms.

If GMail did this, I'd wish them the best of luck.  Until then, no way
Jose.

Peace,
Robert Reese~

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