
Gmail scans, parses, analyzes and catalogs your email - StuntPope
https://easydns.com/blog/2019/06/03/googles-gmail-scans-parses-analyzes-and-catalogs-your-email/
======
debatem1
...and, most menacing of all, _they may send your email to other people!_

More seriously, these things all seem like essentially mandatory features for
an email provider today. If you don't provide fast search of my inbox you
probably aren't a serious option for me, and a spam filter is an absolute
must-have. How can they do those well without all of the above?

~~~
dmix
True. Although spam/search features could be the only thing you want done with
your email.

There's no reason why someone couldn't create a GMail clone with both of those
features on parity but with a business model that doesn't involve mining your
email for receipts.

~~~
joshuamorton
This depends on what you mean. There are features (that many people find
useful, even!) that depend on "mining your email for receipts". For example, I
get push notifications that I have bill payments due, and flights and events
that I register for are automatically added to my calendar. A similar feature,
"trip bundles", which would group flight/hotel/car rental information for a
logical single trip was available in inbox, and was one of the many features
that inbox users complained about losing when Inbox was merged back into
gmail.

And of course, Gmail's business model doesn't really rely on mining your email
receipts. Gmail data isn't used to target ads. So unless by business model,
you mean the features, Gmail basically meets your requirements ;)

------
SteveNuts
Duh. Anyone who didn't think this was happening is simply not paying
attention. Gmail will show a "track your package" link on Amazon order emails,
adds flight or hotel booking to your calendar, and shows ads relevant to
whatever email you are looking at.

This is how Google makes money, and they're not very subtle about it.

~~~
solitus
When I first saw Google Trips I thought that it was so great. It was so useful
to have an automated tool that grouped all my trips' bookings and travel
arrangements. Then I was like: "Waiiiit a minute! They're reading ALL my
emails...OMFG.". I am now migrating towards Fastmail one provider at a time.

~~~
cycrutchfield
Why are you anthropomorphizing an algorithm?

~~~
culot
Don't you think you could get your point across without being obtuse and
patronizing?

"It's not like individual employees are reading your mail, its just an
algorithm that handles it automatically."

That could have been a cooler move.

------
baxtr
I hope this will create an interesting discussion. I have two hearts. I try to
avoid services like google as much as possible since I understand what their
business model is based on and I don't want to support that/put myself at
risk. But, if any of my friends asks me why they should not use it, the risk
stays at exactly that meta level: you should not, because they will "scan,
parse, analyze, ...". But then people ask: so what? I do not care. It will not
affect my life. And, they are probably right. I would love to hear some "real"
non-meta level risks associated with carelessness in privacy matter.

~~~
RedneckBob
(do not forget that our CIA was an early funder of Google)

\--> Tracking Phones, Google Is a Dragnet for the Police <\--

"When detectives in a Phoenix suburb arrested a warehouse worker in a murder
investigation last December, they credited a new technique with breaking open
the case after other leads went cold.

The police told the suspect, Jorge Molina, they had data tracking his phone to
the site where a man was shot nine months earlier.

But after he spent nearly a week in jail, the case against Mr. Molina fell
apart as investigators learned new information and released him. Last month,
the police arrested another man: his mother’s ex-boyfriend, who had sometimes
used Mr. Molina’s car."

------
shereadsthenews
The more I think about this the more it upsets me to see easyDNS using these
fear tactics to advertise their own terrible email service. Whatever you think
Google is doing with your email, I guarantee you that the privacy controls at
easyDNS are impoverished compared to those at Google. Are they seriously
trying to argue that easyDNS has superior insider risk mitigations compared to
Google? If so, let's hear about their architecture. We're all breathlessly
awaiting the revelations of easyDNS's superior technology. I'm sure it's not
just a giant pile of qmail servers that a bunch of random sysadmins have root
access to, right?

~~~
avocado111
The argument is more, Google will try this data to its advantage. This may be
convenient for you or even sometimes a real advantage, but there will also be
situations where they use it in a way which is advantageous for them and a
disadvantage for you.

Let's make up an example. Google scans emails with your purchases and their
frequency and accumulates a pretty good understanding of your purchasing power
and income situation. This can, for example, be used to sell advertising space
for ads which are geared towards a specific income strata.

So far so good.

But the data is also in principle open to companies like credit reporting
companies. But let's drive it further, your landlord might be interested in
the data because it tells him precisely how much he can increase the rent
before you move out and rent something cheaper.

A counter-argument which I see often is that companies like Google and FB do
not sell personalized data abut people because data is in some way capital for
them. But cases like Cambridge Analytica show quite clearly that FB was
already exchanging personalized information against data. It is only slightly
simplified to say that they are already selling data.

------
tantalor
> Then what are they doing with it or why else would they even bother?

Why? So "you can view all your payments, bookings, and subscriptions in one
place".
[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7673989](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7673989)

------
bhhaskin
I'm not sure why people are being so negative here. This is a good thing. The
general public are finally starting to catch on to the true cost of something
being free.

------
lozenge
Perhaps the title should be "Google catalogs purchases of gmail users"? Any
email service with spam filtering and search indexing could meet the
description of "scans, parses, analyzes and catalogs your email".

~~~
everdrive
The technical ability to view the contents of an email and apply spam-
filtering decision is meaningfully different from intentionally retaining that
information and parsing it into various marketing databases, though. I
understand where you're coming from, though. Once a provider can view the
contents of your email for normal functions (such as spam filtering) the user
would never know if that provider was doing something like Google is.

This is a "most caution" approach, and isn't without merit, but it's also not
valid to assume all email providers are doing this simply because it's
technologically possible.

~~~
greiskul
And why is it valid to assume Google is doing this "parsing it into various
marketing databases", where the only evidence about that is Google explicitly
saying they don't do that? They used to scan email for relevant ads (and only
next to the email). They decided that was wrong, and stopped doing that. What
evidence do we have that they are lying?

~~~
everdrive
I'm confused. Is the posted article not a direct counter-example? Google is
scanning your email contents and at least, cataloging your purchases.

~~~
muro
Visible only to you.

~~~
falcolas
And Google. To help build out their profile of who you are and what you buy.
To increase the value of you as a target for advertisers when you click on a
page that uses Google as an ad broker.

~~~
greiskul
Ok, any sources on Google doing that? Cause the article doesn't support that
at all, and Google says it doesn't do that. Or do you disagree with the
statement "also not valid to assume all email providers are doing this simply
because it's technologically possible", and just assume Google is always
malicious because it could be malicious?

------
Alex3917
Every email client does this. Go into any Gmail message and click on "Show
Original." That's exactly what your email would look like if it wasn't
scanned, parsed, and analyzed.

The fact that Gmail is reasonably good at this is literally why people use it.

------
dictum
I don't really understand the mindset of questioning the validity of an
article about something you already know.

It's an opportunity to discuss the _specifics_ of a problem or implementation.

Also, it's always the first day of learning about something for someone. It's
an opportunity to let them know about other related information.

~~~
Demiurge
Exactly, this the perfect article to send to all your friends who don't follow
all the ##l0pht #h4x blogs.

------
cantrevealname
OK, this brings up a question I've been meaning to ask tech-savvy Gmail users.
The typical Hacker News reader is surely aware of the extent that Gmail is
profiling you and surveilling your email. The cost of a commercial privacy-
centric email provider is about $50 per year, a trivial amount for the average
US-based Hacker News reader, much less than going to a sports event or
concert. So why are so many technically-sophisticated _and privacy aware_
people, even here on Hacker News, still using Gmail? I'm not convinced that
it's due to Gmail's superior spam filtering. It's been my experience that the
spam filtering on commercial email providers work just fine.

~~~
aantix
I’m privacy aware, but I just don’t think I care. So many things that I’m
suppose to be outraged about.

I’m exhausted.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
With regard to Gmail, privacy might be the wrong metric to be concerned about
anyway.

Gmail can unilaterally lock you out of your email at any moment, immediately
and forever, with no recourse nor consumer protections.

That, for me, would be mighty annoying.

~~~
shereadsthenews
Every email provider can do this to you.

~~~
StuntPope
If you run email at your own domain, and sync it offsite even if you use
hosted IMAP, you can always switch your MX and be back in control of your
email.

------
threatofrain
I would appreciate if Apple did such things, categorizing email into "humans"
or "advertising" or "bills". That would help a lot of people use email more
than a style refresh.

------
seltzered_
One thing to remember is that most rewards credit cards also do similar
aggregation of purchase data - [https://gizmodo.com/amazon-and-chase-are-
still-confusingly-o...](https://gizmodo.com/amazon-and-chase-are-still-
confusingly-opaque-about-wha-1832351497)

~~~
shereadsthenews
It's much worse than that. You can call any of the credit card companies and
just buy data dumps of transaction histories that are barely even anonymized.
Google organizes your purchase history on your behalf. Everyone else is trying
to sell it.

------
kerng
When Microsoft pointed this out many years back (they had some controversial
ads pointing out Google reading your mail) they were confronted with
criticism.

It's good that finally the public and media is catching up and we have
discussions around these issues.

------
avocado111
What I find more concerning is that, at least in the UK, gmail seems to
include the public IP of the sending device in the "Received" email header.
Because I assume that it's possible (not sure if legal in the UK) to buy the
mapping from IPs to names / identities, this means that it isn't possible to
use an unnamed gmail account in an anonymous way. I guess that most gmail
users are not aware of this issue.

------
tantalor
> We don’t know what else they are scanning for, what else they are parsing
> out, where they are storing it and what they are doing with it.

You didn't know that before, either; the "purchases revelation" changes
nothing. Also, this is true of every website, retail business, method of
transportation, government agency, etc.

------
dragonwriter
This isn't secret; features that openly depend on this are key Gmail selling
points.

------
NikolaeVarius
I don't understand how this is a new realization, this has been the
implication since Day 1, for using email to personalize Ads. Everything else
is just new fluff ontop of the core offering.

~~~
Lendal
They said they weren't using it to personalize ads. To me, this means they're
doing something worse than ad personalization. They're selling the data to
third-parties or they're allowing third-parties to analyze the data in return
for cash. That's what Fakebook does and so that's my expectation of Google.
Especially since they dropped "Don't be evil."

~~~
shereadsthenews
What evidence do you have of that? Google just uses this data on your behalf
to make their services more useful. Purchase analysis was a core launch
feature of Google Inbox and now that Inbox is gone the feature is rolled into
Gmail. I personally get a lot of value from this feature. I like getting
notifications on my mobile when my orders ship and when they are delivered. It
also helps me re-order consumable items, which I did just yesterday when the
igniters in my gas oven failed (again). I bought them last in 2016 but it was
trivial to find the receipt in my purchase history on Google.

~~~
Lendal
My evidence is that they are a publicly-held company which means they're
obligated to make as much money as possible for their shareholders. If they
have something of value, (your purchase history) they must make money off it.
Giving you free stuff without getting anything in return is "bad" in the eyes
of shareholders in the current unregulated business climate.

~~~
shereadsthenews
That's a pretty dumb point of view. It says right at the top of the page on
Google's purchase history list that "Only you can see your purchases". A
rational person needs some kind of basis to refute this claim.

~~~
Lendal
Personal attacks now. You're out of intelligent arguments. Attacking both
intelligence and rationality. I've given my reasons and they are rational. If
you can't see that you can go f-k yourself. What an ass.

------
philips
Is there an alternative that runs everywhere (iOS, Android, webapp, etc) and
provides productivity enhancements like email snoozing and cross platform
contact integration?

------
naringas
and my oldest email is from 2004... i.e. earlier email has vanished

~~~
rconti
[http://www.google.com/search?q=gmail+launch+date](http://www.google.com/search?q=gmail+launch+date)

~~~
naringas
oops i.e. notice of mistake acknowledgement

------
shereadsthenews
Every MUA ever written does these four things to your mail.

------
Havoc
Does this apply to g suite paid products too?

------
unstatusthequo
And even if you leave GMail, you may email with people that have it, and
Google will still have those emails of yours via your email contact.

I’ve been moving to ProtonMail. It’s harder than you expect to de-Google-ize.

------
jwr
I find this particularly interesting, as everyone seems to be assuming that
Google keeps their information "private".

But my YouTube history contains other people's videos, and I've been unable to
get them to resolve the mixup. They don't seem to care.

Of course, in the case of YouTube, it is simply amusing to get videos for
toddlers in your history or recommendations. It will be much less amusing to
get other people's purchase history mixed in with yours.

~~~
jsnell
You've probably got malware on your machine, which is using your browser and
account for Youtube view boosting.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/a9y59n/rare_malwar...](https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/a9y59n/rare_malware_discovered_by_youtube_watch_history/)

~~~
jwr
Every time I mention this, I get downvoted, and I get the usual suggestions.
It seems no one can accept that Google can indeed have bugs in their software.

I do not have malware. I have three devices logged in: a Mac, an iPhone and an
iPad. All under my control, managed carefully. I tried logging all of them
out, removing through google's online panel, resetting my password, and lots
of other things. I reported this to the YouTube team (silence).

The usage patterns of the "other" history are that of a real child: I'm
guessing it's a child between 2 and 4 years old. The usage is limited, so it
isn't likely to be an automated pattern. Various videos, not from a single
author.

I think I'll stop posting about this, because clearly people do not like to
hear about Google having a problem and mixing up people's data. And honestly,
I'm tired of explaining…

