Google mail...i love you and hate you

[Arcdelad]

I have been part of gmail since the beginning...I have watched its storage space grown second by second now for quite a few years, and I must say i love its simplicity and effectiveness...

however...I am noticing some more disturbing trends about my life lately...maybe its a product of gmail's loose intepretation of textual parsing, or maybe gmail is more of an oracle and is indeed pointing at things to come..

for those not familiar with gmail, it is completely free - but with a huge cost, especially to anyone with very strong electronic privacy beliefs...

Gmail will, anytime you send or recieve an email, scan that email for keywords, and then generate ads or links from companies that pay google to do so on the side, above, and below your email.

For example, writing your best friend about your dog may result in adds for dog training, dog food, or other canine related products to appear around your email.

Lately, though, google has gotten disturbing on me...from what I can gather from the ads, my lebido is in jeapordy, i apparantly need a lawnmower (i live in an apt), i should be playing warharmer online (not even out yet), size evidently DOES matter and I should be worried, nostradmus already knows who will win the election this year, and financial dudes are ready to sweep in and fix the devastation wrought by interest rates on my financial life.

Sheesh....

On a positive note, they did lead to this link, which is creepy and histerically funny:

http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

[Kothnok]

... and to think those hard working companies spent their hard earned dollars trying to get you to buy their product only to have you mock them and snub their business.  How could you do such a thing Arc?  Think of their children! Are you so greedy and selfish that you only think of YOUR needs?  So what if you don't need a lawnmower, the lawnmower manufacturer needs to eat too.  Starts to say something about the Nostradomas foretelling who will win the election, but cannot think of anything witty at all... ok, got me there.

Thankfully most of those ads are easily ignorable, which is why gmail is tolerable.  I usually don't pay any attention to them, at least you are aware of them, lol.

[Blacranger]

Another advantage to using g-mail is that it works on these totally blocked out school computers  . Like everything is blocked, and for some reason the twilight site isnt which is great since I have so much free time at school. Although 9 out of 10 every site posted on the twilight forum doesnt work but still I can catch up on what's going on. One of my friends used g-mail to mail some essays to his teacher, afterward he got in trouble, suspension, and  they tried to block the g-mail site.

[JohnnieRat]

You can even access gmail from military computers... which are about the most locked down things around

[Arcdelad]

Yeesh...I can see those adds:

"Buy missiles CHEAP at www.blowupthosecommiebastards.com!"

or

"Are your missiles not long enough? Do they let you down at the crucial launching point? Get help at www.viagramissileheads.com"

[LastDyingBreath]

I don't mind being scanned for keywords and then being presented with text ads.  Gmail is the fastest, most reliable email provider I've used, and I think it's nifty keen.  As long as it's just a robot doing a scan, and not a human snooping... and the instant they put up banners or graphic ads, I'm so done.

[Luise]

Another advantage to using g-mail is that it works on these totally blocked out school computers  . Like everything is blocked, and for some reason the twilight site isnt which is great since I have so much free time at school.

aaah- every teacher's nightmare!

But why do you have so much free time at school? Don't they get you to work at all? Aren't there consequences for not working?

[un4]

I just get the CHEEP V1AGGRA and frree r01ex emails... about 30 times a day, each.  Oh, and some dear, loving friends signed me up for Hillary-Billary and McCain chain letters.  Thanks, kids.   The adds I get are mostly for... beds?