Over at drudgereport, the proprietor is reporting on the conniption fits privacy advocates are having about the new free Google Email service. From his flash:
LA TIMES reporting on Friday: The Internet search firm insists that it needs to know what's in the e-mails that pass through its system -- so that they can be sprinkled with advertisements Google thinks are relevant. After all, revenue from those targeted ads will pay for the Gmail service, which began a limited test Thursday, offering up to 500 times as much e-mail storage as competing Web e-mail programs from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
The TIMES adds: The electronic letters won't be read by Google employees; computers will handle that chore. Nonetheless, the specter of seeing an ad for an antacid beside a message from a friend complaining about stomach pain is enough to make some people nervous about the e-mail service.
These guys are smart. They will actually be the first company to make money on spam. How? Google will be charging their advertisers to place those text ads based on the words in the emails. Most spams are health or financial service related. This will create a whole new place for those text ads to be shown.
Entering 'viagra', a common term in spam messages, comes up with 8 targeted text ads. Google makes a nice piece of change of those ads, I am sure. Add to that the millions of messages with this term daily and people's propensity to open spam, they stand to make a lot of money with this project.
What I am waiting for is how some of the more innovative people will get around this. I predict that someone will come up with a stock paragraph that you could paste into each one of your emails going to a gmail address. This paragraph would contain enough targeted terms to override the actual content in your email in the eyes of the computer placing the ads.
Your friend complains about stomach pain, but the ad placing program thinks the subject is barn raising. It will be fun for you, a head scratcher for google and a costly prank to the people at barnpros.com.
I have found it helpful to do the stretching exercises my physical therapist recommends. Do some core strengthening exercises, such as the ones highlighted at The Mayo Clinic. By keeping your core strong, your back won't put itself in a position to cause that sciatica pain you are having.
"To say my country, right or wrong, is something no patriot would say except in dire emergency; it is like saying, 'my mother, drunk or sober.'" - G.K. Chesterton
You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do.
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"... I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a
paranoid little weirdo... in morse code..."
