HOME
FIND
ARCHIVE
ME
GRUB
Google and gmail introduced a new feature in gmail last few days. Now if you have a “Address” in your email (could be any location blah blah), gmail will allow you to “MAP” that address directly from their sidebar. Look at the image above and the red square. Now this has me concerned a bit for various reasons.
Google likes us to believe that no human read our emails, and only computers do that job. However, I am begining to feel that google computers are reading a bit “too” much here. ” Gmail is not only actively scanning our emails for context relative ad placement, but is also making sense out of the email - It is now perfectly reading the addresses and allowing users to map that location. I am like - why?! I suddenly feel that my privacy with gmail is not that secure as I had imagined it to be.
So what’s next? Next friday when I and my friends are having conversation about what we could do on Friday and Saturday, will google come up with ideas for us on basis of our conversation? Will there be a time, when google will look at where (the location) I am reading email from, take the contents of email and give me localized ads? Suppose I am in Chicago checking my email about my friends who had an amazing Italian dinner in d.c, will I get recommendations from google about Italian restaurants near my hotel in Chicago and ask me to visit them? Google already has embedded RSS readers into gmail - so whats next? “context sensitive” RSS feeds? No - that doesnt seem like feature to me - it feels like a feature creep!
The thing that does concern me is how much sense is gmail making out of our emails. It almost seems now that google’s two eyes are actively scanning every single sentence we write to our friends and trying to make up a gazillion ideas about what it can do with it to serve me better. Or may be serve the Feds. Or serve the government. Or serve the advertizers. Now this make me feel a bit jittery now. I only fear whats next.
And I am suddenly feeling a bit insecure about my gmail email now… For god’s sake, I hope google stops any more feature creeps like these!
I think we are a tad paranoid about this privacy stuff….I read about these very concerns when I first signed up with Gmail and my precious (yes they are: My thoughts have been valued at $100,000,000 per square inch of space taken in the brain) thought at that time was the same as it is now: who gives a flying fuck?
I mean, its not as if I discuss affairs of the state on my gmail…if some perv gets a kick out of reading the monday morning discussion about the great sex that me and my weekend partner had, well, hooray for you and my commiserations on your turgid life!
But, having said all that, I do see the concerns of privacy. I can understand why it might be uncomfortable and downright offending for this invasive intrusion…..
The features that you have outlined are helpful when you think of it…ok, I might find the idea that someone has actually read my undying declaration of love and has sent me a list of the nearest florist; but (there is ALWAYS the but) it is helpful!!!! Also, no human is gonna read mails all day (unless they are Indian parliamentarians who have nothing better to do than debate Ganguly’s exclusion…I mean…Jesus…) so I don’t mind if R2D2 reads my steams emails….
There, I have catered for both sides; I am a true politician
!
Nice one Suyog…we can go on and on about this mate!
Cheerio!
Spooks
I think this is a huge concern. In fact, I find all the Google mail scanning for contextual ads and what not intrusive as it is. And now this!!
My private life is important. Now some people like Spookedy Spook who has no life at all
:P might make nothing of it. But I care!
It wont stop at this. I feel it were upto them they’ll advise me what places i should go for a holiday, how i should spend a Sundaty afternoon, and which color socks I should wear.
I hate it, absolutely hate it!
jedi
This reply is for the Jedi..
Jedi, You should wear pink socks.. with extra dots..
:P 
Ok, kill me!
NM
[...] Nor is a new Gmail feature. Suyog is worried about Gmail’s new “map feature“, which offers to map any address found in one of your emails. “For God’s sake”, he says, I hope Google stops any more feature creeps like these!” Technorati Tags: email clients, Gmail, Mail.app, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Google, privacy, map feature, email [...]
Let me get this straight.
Somebody e-mails you an address. You might likely want to go there. A computer has analyzed your e-mail, found the presence of an address, and offers to map it. And this is a bad thing?
Are you concerned that Google’s text analysis algorithms will become self-aware, and then go blabbing your secrets?
I mean, how on Earth does this compromise your privacy? (Or anyone else’s?) If you send someone your address, they might be able to find it on a map.
Hey Dan,
Thanks for the comment. Yes I would rather prefer it if gmail would introduce the feature and allow me to turn it ON or OFF if I want it.
To me, address mapping is just one of many things that gmail *may* throw up on users in the name of features. It may not be a big deal today, but I would rather like it if computers or humans didnt keep reading my email to make sense out of it.
As I said, today its maps - tomorrow it might be something else - it might offer suggestions on what to do and what not to do based on what I type in my email - which is what I dont want :).
I love gmail, but I will prefer if gmail gave me the option of turning on features that I dont want - they did that with RSS readers embedded in gmail, what stops them from making these features too?
Cheers!!
Suyog
[...] Another new Gmail feature also raises privacy concerns. Suyog is worried about Gmail’s new “map feature”, which offers to map any address found in one of your emails. “For God’s sake”, he says, “I hope Google stops any more feature creeps like these!” [...]
i would like to be invited to join gmail please.. anyone.