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Comment by baldfat | Hacker News Reader

I feel like this is a common Internet Legend. People were 100% aware of gmail and its privacy since day one.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/115692/article.html

EDIT: Quote > But Google is planning to scan e-mail and add advertisements that it thinks are relevant to the messages. Additionally, the Gmail privacy policy warns that messages, even if "deleted" by a user, may still be stored in the system, even long after users have closed their account--something that some privacy campaigners believe may be in conflict with U.S. and European data protection and privacy laws.

Article about privacy right there. I talk with people and they always say Google was forced into reviling they read people's gmail. Wasn't true.

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> People were 100% aware of gmail and its privacy since day one.

I think that statement is too general. From where I was sitting, it looked like people didn't think about privacy at all, and the only thing they were saying was "Holy shit, this is free!" Are you sure the people you tend to talk to are representative of the general population?

My statement was Google's Communication.

Your statement is did people care? That answer is if they did they wouldn't use Google services or FaceBook or most of the Internet.

Google's communication is clear as mud.

http://www.infodocket.com/2014/04/30/privacy-google-no-longe...

I don't know seems very basic to me. They removed the ability to display ads off on the Administration Panel and they no longer will be mining data from student emails. Why is it MUD if it was an option to turn on ads?

There are a lot more details in this sibling comment. Have you read it and the linked article?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11012392

They hid and lied about the facts about ad tracking of Education and Apps emails etc. until they were forced to testify about it in federal court and no one was clued into it. Once they got caught tracking and making money on it for many many years they rolled back some stuff. How is that clear communication?

Or how is that "Google has been very upfront on exactly how their business model works with users since day one." ?

> Google is planning to scan e-mail and add advertisements that it thinks are relevant to the messages.

I remember when people were scandalized by this, a minority in my circle but it was funny. Of course they were going to do that, what did they expect. I think Google is "evil" now for other set of reasons though.

Just because it's in some ToS doesn't mean people were "100% aware of its privacy". A large percentage of people still don't know about it.

It's still not in the TOS today. You can read Google's privacy pages today in vain for a mention of "we read all of your incoming and outgoing email and sell the information to companies so they can target ads at you".

The closest statements are mealy-mouthed ones along the lines of "we collect information about how you use our services and use that information to improve our services". Which is true of every single business in the history of the world.

> The closest statements are mealy-mouthed ones along the lines of "we collect information about how you use our services and use that information to improve our services".

> Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection.

https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/

So, does that mean, for example, anything you type in a non-public Google Docs is auto scanned for advertising purposes?

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