[bluefirebrand]

Counter-counterpoint

They provide products like gmail for free because it allows them insight into people's communication which they can then leverage with search and ad networking to make way more than they could simply selling email services.

[strombofulous]

Google has not done that in many years.

"These ads are shown to you based on your online activity while you're signed into Google. We will not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads." https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en

[mithr]

The sentence right before the one you quoted is

> When you open Gmail, you'll see ads that were selected to show you the most useful and relevant ads. The process of selecting and showing personalized ads in Gmail is fully automated.

They created that page in order to highlight that there are no humans reading your mail, but OP's point that "it allows them insight into people's communication which they can then leverage with search and ad networking to make way more than they could simply selling email services" is still true to this day. It's just that it's all automated.

[username90]

No, read the next sentences:

> These ads are shown to you based on your online activity while you're signed into Google. We will not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads.

They don't scan your emails for ads, they use your search history etc for ads.

[mithr]

Fair point, though I think that wording leaves room for interpretation...

Does learning your social graph by looking at email metadata (sender/addressee, location, time) count as "scan[ning] or reading your Gmail messages"? There are a lot of insights you could "skim from the top" if you control an entire communication platform, even if you don't fully dig into the content.

And regardless: to OP's larger point, the reason Google offers services such as Gmail for free isn't mostly because their support cost is low -- it's mostly because these services allow them to collect a large amount of data that is then used for selling targeted ads, far surpassing the amount of money they would earn from offering ad-free services.

[gsich]

Or email headers, which can also tell enough.

[bluefirebrand]

All this shows me is that Google pinky promises that they don't do that.

Even if they don't scan the contents of your email bodies, you don't think they know who you are getting emails from, who you are emailing, and a boatload of info about who you do business with and such as a result?

I'm betting they do.

[ping_pong]

They do scan your emails for Amazon receipts so that they know what you purchase. That's why Amazon changed how they send receipts.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/google-gmail-tracks-purchase...

[username90]

Google engineers aren't exactly known to be loyal to the company, if Google didn't keep their promises about stuff like this I'm pretty sure it would get leaked quickly.

[bluefirebrand]

The language of the "promise" is such that there is a lot of gray area and there is a lot of information contained with an email that is not the "message" of the email.

Do you honestly think they just blindly deliver emails and don't take even a single scrap of data from them for their own benefit? The biggest data aggregator on the planet is just ignoring all of that data?

Ok.

[username90]

> Do you honestly think they just blindly deliver emails and don't take even a single scrap of data from them for their own benefit? The biggest data aggregator on the planet is just ignoring all of that data?

Yes, here is the official statement:

> Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change. This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products.

https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in...

Edit: The problem with google is that they collect a lot of data they can abuse, not that they are particularly known to abuse data. So the danger is that their policies change while still having your data, then there is nothing you can do.

[owenmarshall]

An interesting question is how Google defines “content”.

I’d imagine Google could build up great profiles based on metadata alone - which domains email you, which you email, etc.

[craftinator]

> Google has not done that in many years.

I love that you post a copy of the Google PR written help documentation to support this claim. Also, "I have never lied. Ever!".

[minikites]

But the reason they created it was so they could. It doesn't matter that they changed their mind later.

[gerash]

I'm all for regulations to avoid these account closures with no recourse.

That said, why do people care so much about Google using Gmail data for ad. You either trust Google or not.

If you are convinced that random humans won't read your private emails for fun and giggles then why should I care if their regexes or neural networks are fed my emails or my search history?

The only downside is if someone is watching your screen, certain ads can reveal the content of your emails in that scenario.

Google should simply provide a paid version for all its services in case people dislike ads but whether their code runs on my gmail or Google Drive content doesn't matter that much to me.

[bluefirebrand]

> why do people care so much about Google using Gmail data for ad.

What does this have to do with anything I said?

I never made a judgement of it being bad or good. I just pointed out that probably Google isn't providing Gmail as a free service out of any kind of charity

[gerash]

I assumed you're implying mal intentions. Otherwise, sure it is ad supported and not a charity.

[robotresearcher]

Sure, that's absolutely true. But the margin would be eroded if they provided much better customer service for unpaid Gmail. At some service level, the margin would be negative.

[rsj_hn]

IMO the problem is the dismissive attitude towards human support where it is viewed only as a roadblock to "scale".

Being able to provide good support is a difficult skill to acquire and maintain, and most companies struggle with doing it regardless of how much they spend. You cannot get good support by throwing money at the problem any more than you can get good engineering -- it's a necessary but not sufficent condition. Moreover being able to provide good support requires a customer focus, attention to detail, and focus on quality that was never part of Google's DNA, and which Google prides itself as not caring about. To make Google into even a decent support company that creates as good of a support experience as Amazon (which is years ahead of Google) would require much more than higher margins, it would require a total rework of the corporate culture, leadership team, hiring policies, internal training and communications, etc. That's hard to do at a company that has such a dismissive attitude towards its user base, primarily because historically the real customers are advertisers and users are the product. It's hard to transition to more of an Amazon model where the end users were always the customers and the business was built around that understanding.

[bluefirebrand]

This is a bit of a tautology. Of course if they spend more on service than the service makes them the margin is negative.

But let's not lose sight of the fact this is one of the biggest companies in the world we are talking about. A company that could probably treat the entire GDP of a small country as a rounding error.

That margin you're referring to is very likely enormous and even if it cost them 10% of said margin to offer better service for it, they would still be making absurd amounts of money.