Google's pop-up e-mail ads are bound to get users steamed
By Beth Teitell
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
I'm reading a friend's e-mail about a magazine piece he's trying to sell, and he casually mentions it's in his ``usual obsessional style.'' So guess what pops up on the right side of my screen?
Hint: Think Big (Buttinsky) Brother.
Sponsored ads - linked to the content of my message - invading my e-mail! One pushed natural remedies for obsessive-compulsive disorder, and two others mentioned ``negative thoughts'' and directed me to a trial subscription for Psychology Today and a positive-thinking Web site.
G-mail, in its role as Edna Kravitz, thinks I'm the obsessive one, while it's my friend who needs help.
Or maybe it is me. Ever since I packed my bags and schlepped across cyberspace from Hotmail to Google's new e-mail service, putting aside privacy and wiretap-law concerns for the ability to use Google's engine to search my e-mail correspondence, I've had this creepy feeling that someone's steaming open my cyber envelopes.
Well, not someone, some computer, at least if Google's telling the truth about its ``completely automated'' method for choosing targeted ads.
Actually, I'd almost rather have a human as my message yenta. The right person - perhaps with a degree in social work - could read my e-mail and steer me away from toxic relationships. And all without showing me ads relating to poison control centers.
This snoop e-mail is the latest in a growing family of nosy and judgmental software that's making us humans a bit edgy. As the Wall Street Journal wrote a few years ago, ``If TiVo Thinks You Are Gay, Here's How To Set It Straight; Amazon.com Knows You, Too, Based on What You Buy.''
As you would imagine, civil rights and privacy organizations are calling on Google to suspend its G-mail service until privacy concerns are resolved, but I wonder if G-mail's smart enough to really cause problems.
I sent a friend an e-mail accusing her of being promiscuous for changing addresses so frequently (as if I should talk). She wrote back denying that she was an e-mail hussy and blamed her most recent move on ``stupid technical problems.'' Well, up pop a bunch of links for ``funny and uniqueT-shirts.'' (Let me guess: ``I'm with stupid.'')
Meanwhile, as the do-gooders rail against the latest intrusion in our private matters, one of my friends - a do-badder? - had a different agenda.
``I wonder what kind of pop-ups you'd get if someone were sending you an angry e-mail, like, ``Dear ho-bag: Keep your hands off my husband, you tramp. If I catch your tube-top wearin' hoochie self around here, I'll hit you with a sock full of nickels.''
``Would you get a Netflix pop-up for `Fatal Attraction?' '' she asked.
Send it and let's see, I suggested. She did - but, go figure, not one ad.
I guess even G-mail knows when it's best to mind its own business.
