Sharing One’s GMAIL Story

Of course, considering I am writing about the company whose free blog service I am using, I suppose that makes me something of a hypocrite; however, going to GMAIL, I keep repeatedly seeing the same link: “Share your GMAIL Story.” Now of course, as you know, or should, if you use GMAIL they have algorithms that concern privacy advocates. Most specifically, one never throws their data away, and their information or the things they mail and are mailed reside on Google’s servers.

What has privacy advocates in an uproar is the fact that Google makes no bones about using what you send and receive to offer you products for sale by those that buy from Google directed advertising space. Google isn’t the only firm that does this, at one point, I had a phone interview with Experian, a credit agency that not only reports on one’s credit, but uses their credit data to help advertisers direct their marketing. Again, this is something that has privacy advocates in an uproar.

Of course, being what we are, read: lazy, we abide by this with our discount grocery store cards, using our credit cards rather than cash, and surfing a web bogged with cookies. It’s amazing what a market for the product that is our information there is.

The debate is more than I have time to write on for the moment, but I was thinking about some shared GMAIL stories we won’t hear or see posted, for instance:

GMAIL is amazing! I was surfing it and my friend John said, “You need to get off of Meth!” I read that thinking, “Meth? That’s just one of the many drugs I think are just great.” That’s when I saw an ad to the right of the message body offering addiction counseling in greater Sioux Falls. I have to say, “It’s a good thing Google has algorithms in place to sift through the mails I am sending and receiving! Otherwise, I would never have heard of ‘New Recoveries’!”

I wonder about what Google is looking for in their “Share your GMAIL story.” I don’t suspect it will involve stories like the above hypothetical. It’s a good thing there is irony, otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to giggle.