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First, do note that I also talk about a bet ("my money is on.."). The core of the analysis is that Google with Adsense has a revenue system that makes their interest showing me the most relevant ad. The more they know, the better the ad, the more revenue. The "bet" part is that this revenue is worth more than shady marketers would be able to extract from the data.

The best way for Google to know a lot about me is for them to not give me any good reason not to let them track me, scan my email etc. Any meaningful breach of privacy will erode that faith. Regular ads don't have that faith (an adblocker is invariably the plugin I install), Facebook don't have it (Facebook disconnect is the second one). Google can very easily be added to that list.

Also, Google is large enough and public enough that any significant erosion of privacy will trigger public intervention. A kind of "too big to fail".




Letting someone read my mail and track me across the internet is a loss of privacy. There is no need for a breach or erosion of privacy, because by using gmail I'm giving up my privacy in exchange for a free email service. That's simply the deal.

The question is, does this undeniable loss of privacy matter and can we know how great that loss will eventually be? I think it does matter, partly because we cannot know or control the extent of the loss and we cannot easily take it back (if at all).

There's also a great security risk if so much sensitive information is stored in one place. Google is certainly more competent than I am in securing their database. But the incentive for someone to steal it from them is orders of magnitude greater as well.




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