What does google do with the data it scans from our emails?

[DCal430]

As many notice google scans your gmail emails for events, flights, and other things. It uses this to provide helpful reminders and suggestions to users.

So what does google do with all of this information it gets from users email?

 

[Jeff7]

They'll scrub out marketing data, and figure out how to better advertise at you in order to let their customers more effectively convince you to part with your money.



Most of Google's revenue is from advertising.

 

[lxskllr]

Build profiles, target ads, give to the government when asked.

 

[DCal430]

Scary if you think about it, with the GPS tracking they know where you live, where you work, what stores you are going to, and with the email scanning they know where you visit, what airline you use, what kind of appointments you have, and what not. So much data, they can map your whole life.

 

[lxskllr]

Scary if you think about it, with the GPS tracking they know where you live, where you work, what stores you are going to, and with the email scanning they know where you visit, what airline you use, what kind of appointments you have, and what not. So much data, they can map your whole life.

Yup. It's all sitting there waiting to be abused. That's why I use very little Google, and stay away from central services as much as possible.

 

[ch33zw1z]

send it to Utah.

 

[DrPizza]

I'm assuming that with googleanalytics script running on 3/4 of the websites I visit that they're also gaining a ton of data from a lot of your behavior online. (I have scripts and ads turned off, except for certain sites such as this one.)

What I found amazing was that my wife was looking at some product on one of my computers. Half an hour later, she was on her laptop in the living room. She started receiving ads for that product on her computer. I don't know if she had "temporarily allow all of this page" turned scripts off or what; but 'they' still managed to track her behavior by IP address.

 

[KeithTalent]

I don't know, but it's nothing I care about.

KT

 

[mmntech]

I'm assuming that with googleanalytics script running on 3/4 of the websites I visit that they're also gaining a ton of data from a lot of your behavior online. (I have scripts and ads turned off, except for certain sites such as this one.)

What I found amazing was that my wife was looking at some product on one of my computers. Half an hour later, she was on her laptop in the living room. She started receiving ads for that product on her computer. I don't know if she had "temporarily allow all of this page" turned scripts off or what; but 'they' still managed to track her behavior by IP address.

It's sure getting creepy. Back during Xmas, my mom had bought my little cousin some clothes from Baby Gap. About a week later, she gets an ad from the Gap in her Gmail inbox. This is a store she never shops at, except that one time. I asked her if she gave them her email address. She swears she didn't.

That's how all these companies make money though. Google, Facebook, Twitter. They collect information on where you browse and what you like, then sell it to advertisers. They're information brokers first and foremost. The problem is that consumers have very little control over what kind of information gets out there.

 

[purbeast0]

I don't know, but it's nothing I care about.

KT

i agree. i couldn't care less if they know what websites i go to or what i enjoy, then try to market towards me. i don't see most of it because of adblock anyways.

 

[Ichinisan]

As many notice google scans your gmail emails for events, flights, and other things. It uses this to provide helpful reminders and suggestions to users.

So what does google do with all of this information it gets from users email?

It uses it to provide helpful reminders and suggestions to users.

 

[DCal430]

i agree. i couldn't care less if they know what websites i go to or what i enjoy, then try to market towards me. i don't see most of it because of adblock anyways.

You don't care they are scanning your emails for information. These are your private personal emails.

What is funny is if this was the government scanning our personal emails for information, their would be outrage. Since it is a private company, people pay no attention.

 

[Captante]

I don't know, but it's nothing I care about.

KT

QFT. :\

Actually my first thought was anything they want. Not to imply that I'm happy about it but real privacy has been an illusion for a long time now unless you live 100% off the grid.

 

[purbeast0]

You don't care they are scanning your emails for information. These are your private personal emails.

What is funny is if this was the government scanning our personal emails for information, their would be outrage. Since it is a private company, people pay no attention.

correct, i do not give a shit. they are scanning my email and billions of other people's email. my info is a needle in a haystack. no ... more like a needle in a billion haystacks. not really concerned.

also don't give a shit if the government is doing the same.

just because they have all of this data doesn't mean anyone is looking at it. and even if they are ... meh, don't give a shit.

 

[Jeff7]

I'm assuming that with googleanalytics script running on 3/4 of the websites I visit that they're also gaining a ton of data from a lot of your behavior online. (I have scripts and ads turned off, except for certain sites such as this one.)

What I found amazing was that my wife was looking at some product on one of my computers. Half an hour later, she was on her laptop in the living room. She started receiving ads for that product on her computer. I don't know if she had "temporarily allow all of this page" turned scripts off or what; but 'they' still managed to track her behavior by IP address.

Ghostery makes it interesting. Google shows up everywhere. You've got their datacenter standing behind you most of the time you're online.
Google Analytics is here at the forums.
Head to Wallgreens.com to check on some medication. Doubleclick is there. (Doubleclick is owned by Google.)
Check news at NPR.com or Foxnews.com - Google and Doubleclick, respectively.
Look at cat pics at Reddit or Tumblr. Google is there.
Watch gory car crash videos on Liveleak. Google again.
Check investments at Edward Jones. Again.
Post racist rants at a KKK forum. Google and Doubleclick wonder about your choice of friends.
Read up on heart failure at WebMD. Despite your choice of forums, Doubleclick hopes you're feeling ok.
See what you can do about student debt at www.studentdebtrelief.us. Mhmm.



Two sets of footprints in the sand. Google's datacenter was following me. Then, when there was only one set of footprints, that's when I installed Ghostery and Cookieculler.

i agree. i couldn't care less if they know what websites i go to or what i enjoy, then try to market towards me. i don't see most of it because of adblock anyways.

You're easier to manipulate than you'd like to think though. Annual spending on advertising is in the hundreds of billions of dollars about $170 billlion. They're not doing it entirely because they like being attention whores. They're expecting a return on their investment. The more they know about you, the more manipulative their ads can be, tailored to effectively coerce you into handing over money.

Marketing is surprisingly effective.

correct, i do not give a shit. they are scanning my email and billions of other people's email. my info is a needle in a haystack. no ... more like a needle in a billion haystacks. not really concerned.

also don't give a shit if the government is doing the same.

just because they have all of this data doesn't mean anyone is looking at it. and even if they are ... meh, don't give a shit.

"Needle in haystack" analogies only really work on people and sluggish computers. What if you've got a computer that can analyze those billion haystacks in a few minutes and not only sift out the needles but also count the individual pieces of hay and produce a graphical distribution of their lengths?

Along those lines, here's something quite sophisticated which is performing a relatively trivial task: Sorting "bad" potato chips from an assembly line. It can visually inspect 5500 pounds of potato chips per hour for a variety of defects, and then automatically remove them from the conveyor belt. There's that level of technology at work to help keep the horrors of overcooked or bubbled potato chips away from customers. It can also detect foreign objects, such as insects, rodents (or rodent pieces), stones, stems, and perhaps even small pointy pieces of metal.
Imagine what you could do with Google's amount of money, especially if you're not analyzing physical objects.

So, "needle in a haystack" only works up to the point that you are facing a high-speed haystack-inspection machine that's been optimized for needle detection.



(Seriously though, that's an impressive machine.)

 

[Grooveriding]

Why worry over this when the NSA has every single email you send and receive through gmail ? If you're concerned about privacy and your email, gmail is not a service to be using. I closed my gmail, google and hotmail accounts a while ago. Why use those services if they're wide open to illegal spying by the NSA.

 

[KeithTalent]

You're easier to manipulate than you'd like to think though. Annual spending on advertising is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. They're not doing it entirely because they like being attention whores. They're expecting a return on their investment. The more they know about you, the more manipulative their ads can be, tailored to effectively coerce you into handing over money.

Marketing is surprisingly effective.

I don't know about that. I can't think of the last thing I purchased due to a directed advertisement that I did not purposely seek out, or maybe they are so in my head that I'm not even aware they are controlling all of my spending!

KT

 

[NikolaeVarius]

You don't care they are scanning your emails for information. These are your private personal emails.

What is funny is if this was the government scanning our personal emails for information, their would be outrage. Since it is a private company, people pay no attention.

Can I see where I signed up to be secretly monitored by the US government?

Because when I signed up for Googles services, I consented to be tracked and served ads in return for free usage of many many many Google products.

 

[Capt Caveman]

You don't care they are scanning your emails for information. These are your private personal emails.

What is funny is if this was the government scanning our personal emails for information, their would be outrage. Since it is a private company, people pay no attention.

You're using their email service and giving them permission. If you don't like it, use another email service.

 

[Red Squirrel]

They do very naughty things with the only agenda being profit, and sharing with the government, who's agenda is total control of the people, and profit.

I refuse to buy into this whole cloud stuff. I run and control pretty much everything I use including my email. Unfortunately that does not make me 100% safe as the NSA still sniffs the entire internet as well not to mention any emails sent to a gmail or other similar service will get classified and tracked too, but at least I'm making it a tad harder on them. With the massive amount of traffic on the internet not sure if they are actually capable of classifying and storing the data in real time or if lot of it gets dropped. Not sure how effective encryption is either. The end point needs to know how to decode it. Whatever process was involved to do that (preshared key, etc) the NSA has that too. If not, they'll just brute force it with their quantum supercomputers. Though I'd imagine they only bother with that if they suspect something as even with their super computers it's probably near impossible to decrypt every single thing. Though, I might be under estimating them, too.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

They do very naughty things with the only agenda being profit, and sharing with the government, who's agenda is total control of the people, and profit.

I refuse to buy into this whole cloud stuff. I run and control pretty much everything I use including my email. Unfortunately that does not make me 100% safe as the NSA still sniffs the entire internet as well not to mention any emails sent to a gmail or other similar service will get classified and tracked too, but at least I'm making it a tad harder on them. With the massive amount of traffic on the internet not sure if they are actually capable of classifying and storing the data in real time or if lot of it gets dropped. Not sure how effective encryption is either. The end point needs to know how to decode it. Whatever process was involved to do that (preshared key, etc) the NSA has that too. If not, they'll just brute force it with their quantum supercomputers. Though I'd imagine they only bother with that if they suspect something as even with their super computers it's probably near impossible to decrypt every single thing. Though, I might be under estimating them, too.

The tin foil is strong with this one.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The tin foil is strong with this one.

Since Snowden exposing the truth, the whole tinfoil hat call is pretty much irrelevant. People no longer suspect these things are happening and are no longer paranoid that they're happening, they now know they're happening.

 

[Jeff7]

I don't know about that. I can't think of the last thing I purchased due to a directed advertisement that I did not purposely seek out, or maybe they are so in my head that I'm not even aware they are controlling all of my spending!

KT

That's pretty much the idea.


>300 million people in the US.
$170 billion in annual advertising spending.
Options:
- Warren Buffet and his friends are glued to the TV all day and buy anything they like that's in a commercial. (Specifically, they buy the whole company.)
- People are more susceptible to advertising than they'd like to think.
- Advertising is a big scam that's completely ineffective, but marketing departments haven't found that out yet.


Another example: Rewards credit cards.
A 2% cash-back bonus will often result in an increase in spending that's well beyond that 2%. Credit card companies aren't pushing rewards cards on customers because the companies feel like giving away free money. They expect a return on investment.

 

[amdhunter]

Sorts them to use against you in a court of law one day.

 

[ElFenix]

Scary if you think about it, with the GPS tracking they know where you live, where you work, what stores you are going to, and with the email scanning they know where you visit, what airline you use, what kind of appointments you have, and what not. So much data, they can map your whole life.

google's traffic data must be amazing for traffic engineers.