NewMexiKen posted an item Friday about a new free email service from Google. This report from Wired News describes the catch that, as Wired’s headline states, makes for “Free E-Mail With a Steep Price?” Too steep, NewMexiKen thinks.
But Google said it would use automated technology to scan the content of incoming e-mail for keywords and place related text ads inside the mail. For example, if someone sent an e-mail to a Gmail user suggesting they go out for Mexican food, the recipient might see a couple of text ads in the right column of the e-mail suggesting specific Mexican restaurants in their area.
Wayne Rosing, Google’s vice president of engineering, said the system would not read and insert ads into correspondence that the Gmail user sent out.
“That would be editorializing your outgoing e-mail,” he said.
Gmail would only insert ads into incoming mail — presumably editorializing only incoming mail.
Google already targets ads on its search results pages. But Richard M. Smith, a privacy and security consultant, said scanning e-mail to seed it with ads is a bad idea.
“I think it’s crossing a line that shouldn’t be crossed. They should just transfer content. They should never be looking at content,” Smith said.