Suhit Gupta
04-02-2004, 06:32 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2010-1032_3-5183646.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2010-1032_3-5183646.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=news</a><br /><br /></div>So now that the speculation on whether Google's new 'free gigabyte' of email service is real or just an April 1st gag has died down (it is for real, folks), more and more details appear to be coming forth, and some of them may not be very palatable, in particular the contextual advertising service.<br /><br />"On the surface, it sounds like a wow idea. You get one gigabyte of storage and don't pay a copper cent in return. Credit the folks at Google for doing something for the common user ... [Although] Microsoft and Yahoo will eventually respond in kind, lest they fall behind Google. But all the encomia that's greeting the announcement of "Gmail" distracts attention from the fact that there's yet a hidden price you will still pay, albeit in the form of a different sort of coin. The Google contextual advertising system automatically scans for frequently used terms in order to serve up ads."<br /><br />Though Google's privacy policy states that "no human reads your mail to target ads or other information without your consent," and the company says the text analysis will be done by computer, this business model already has some concerned about privacy. Advertisers have been looking for more and more ways of trying to reach the end user and this is yet another way. Yahoo has <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/washpost/20040402/tc_washpost/a43373_2004apr1">an article</a> where they give examples of the kinds of advertisements you can expect. So what do you think? Would you still go for this?