Hacker News Reader

I think showing an ad for a bingo card creator when Ethyl Smith searches for one is the perfect (and original) mechanism for targeted ads.

What I worry about is Ethyl Smith's emails / chats / SMSs (via hangout) / location and map searches &c. all being collected for the sole purpose of showing her the perfect targeted ad.

View on HN

In my personal opinion, I don't mind Google using their algorithms and that to extract data from all those sources to display to me relevant things that I'd actually buy, then show me stuff I don't care about. It's not like Google employes thousands of people who pour through your email, chats, hangouts and other stuff to be like "yup, this ad would be perfect for them."

I agree. I use gmail, so I can't in all honesty say that I have an objection to less privacy in return for targeted ads.

But I do get pissed off that the NSA can tell Google to give them that data without my permission and with no benefit to me (I don't live in the US so there's no security benefit to me even if the NSA was increasing US security).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com