On: Gmail tracks the history of things you buy, and it’s hard to delete

[jonny_eh]

They also read emails to catch spam and phishing attempts.

[jgalt212 → jonny_eh]

true, but you don't have to read 100% of them to train the spam and phishing catchers. But you do need to read 100% of the emails, i.e. no sampling, if you want get a comprehensive purchase history of each gmail user--which they seem to have.

[joshuamorton → jgalt212]

You have to read the incoming emails to filter them.

There's no way to know if the email you were sent is spam without looking at it, in some sense.

[ma2rten → jonny_eh]

They also read emails to index them for search.

[SquareWheel → ma2rten]

Ah, I misinterpreted this comment. At first I thought you meant "Search" as in the product. Of course you actually just meant searching your Gmail.

I downed you before but can't undo it now it seems. My apologies.

[JetSpiegel → ma2rten]

Even though email search can't find anything. Ridiculous coming from Google.

[raverbashing → JetSpiegel]

Really? I don't have a problem usually with gmail

[reaperducer → raverbashing]

I support the parent's comment.

I've had e-mail messages open in the GMail web interface that when I search for the words I can actually see on my screen come up with nothing.