gmail (Google Mail & Ads) [was- Re: Fwd: [ILUG] Google Job ]

[John McCormac]

Brian Foster wrote:
>     http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1185534,00.html
>   “Google is watching you
>    [For] privacy protection lobbyists the arrival of Gmail was
>    the worst idea since the Pentagon dreamed up Total Information
>    Awareness ‥ ([which] was subsequently abandoned due to the
>    political outrage it caused.)‟

Is the main qualification to being a 'technology journalist' a complete 
and utter gullibility? Though given the guff what passes for the Irish 
technology press and elsewhere, it seems the only attribute that is 
required.

>  there's a number of choice quotes, including some
>  rather inept ones from Google's upper management.
> 
>  one (not from Google) which gives some food for
>  thought is:
> 
>   “``It's one of the creepiest things I have ever heard of,''
>    [a privacy consultant] told Wired magazine. ``Can I, as a
>    pro-life person, for example, target email messages that
>    seem to be about abortion?''‟

It used be that Life magazine was the magazine for people who did not 
read and Time was the magazine for people who did not think. Wired is 
always missing the big picture for the sake of a pseudo-Zeitgeist quote. 
The big picture in this case is that the information derived from the 
social networks and behaviours of the account holders is far more 
valuable than just advertising revenue because it can identify trends, 
fashions and new consumer groupings. Then with the move to fixed IPs, 
and IPv6, search engines and the like are far more of a threat to 
privacy than people even realise.

Regards...jmcc
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