Gmail and Targeted Ads: is that the right issue?

When Gmail was launched in April 2004, there was an outcry among privacy advocates that its model of email scanning for advertisement purposes was a troubling new privacy invasion. So, with the hindsight of nearly three years, where do I think these privacy advocates were right, and where they were wrong? I’ll quote some of Google’s public statements on Gmail here.

Everyone agrees that email communications should be confidential. So, the question is whether a particular model of ad targeting violates that principle. All major free webmail services carry advertising, and most of it is irrelevant to the people who see it. Some services which compete with Gmail attempt to target theirs ads to users based on their demographic profile (e.g., gender, income level or family status). Google believes that showing relevant advertising offers more value to users than displaying random pop-ups or untargeted banner ads. In Gmail, users see text ads and links to related pages that are relevant to the content of their messages. The links to related pages are similar to Google search results, and are culled from Google's index of web pages.

Ads and links to related pages only appear alongside the message that they are targeted to, and are only shown when the Gmail user, whether sender or recipient, is viewing that particular message. No email content or other personally identifiable information is ever shared with advertisers. In fact, advertisers do not even know how often their ads are shown in Gmail, as this data is aggregated across thousands of sites in the Google Network.

All email services scan your email. They do this routinely to provide such popular features as spam filtering, virus detection, search, spellchecking, forwarding, auto-responding, flagging urgent messages, converting incoming email into cell phone text messages, automatic saving and sorting into folders, converting text URLs to clickable links, and reading messages to the blind. These features are widely accepted, trusted, and used by hundreds of millions of people every day.

Google scans the text of Gmail messages in order to filter spam and detect viruses, just as all major webmail services do. Google also uses this scanning technology to deliver targeted text ads and other related information. This is completely automated and involves no humans.
When a user opens an email message, computers scan the text and then instantaneously display relevant information that is matched to the text of the message. Once the message is closed, ads are no longer displayed. It is important to note that the ads generated by this matching process are dynamically generated each time a message is opened by the user--in other words, Google does not attach particular ads to individual messages or to users' accounts.

Some advocates expressed the concern that Gmail may compromise the privacy of those who send email messages to Gmail accounts, since the senders have not necessarily agreed to Gmail's privacy policies or Terms of Use. But using Gmail does not violate the privacy of senders since no one other than the recipient is allowed to read their email messages, and no one but the recipient sees targeted ads and related information.

In an email exchange, both senders and recipients should have certain rights. Senders should have the right to decide whom to send messages to, and to choose an email provider that they trust to deliver those messages. Recipients should also have certain rights, including the right to choose the method by which to view their messages. Recipients should have the right to read their email any way they choose, whether through a web interface (like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or Hotmail), a handheld device (like a BlackBerry or cellphone), a software program (such as Outlook), or even via a personal secretary.

On the Internet, senders are not required to consent to routine automatic processing of email content, such as for spam filtering or virus detection, or the automatic flagging or filing of messages into folders based on content. Email providers essentially act as personal assistants for subscribers, holding and delivering their email messages and carrying out various tasks (such as deleting spam, removing viruses, enabling search, or displaying related information). And of course, recipients have the right to forward, delete, print or distribute any message they receive.

So, is there a privacy issue with Gmail?

There are issues with email privacy, and most of these issues are common to all email providers. The main issue is that the contents of your messages are stored on mailservers for some period of time; there is always a danger that these messages can be obtained and used for purposes that may harm you, such as possible misuse of your information by governments, as well as by your email provider. Careful consideration of the relevant issues, close scrutiny of email providers' practices and policies, and suitable vigilance and enforcement of appropriate legislation are the best defenses against misuse of your information. I’ll come back to these issues later, since they’re the new set of privacy challenges in Web 2.0 services.