Google: Yes, we Read Your Gmail

From DailyTech: While Google Inc. (GOOG) insists its actions are perfectly legal, what the world's top internet firm is doing with your email may come as a shocking surprise for some.

Google in a court filing this week wrote:

"All users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing.

Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient’s [email provider] in the course of delivery. Indeed, ‘a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties."

So what does Google mean by "automated processing" and "opening"? Well it turns out that if someone from a different service emails one of Gmail's 425 million users, Google opens that message and scans it looking for keywords -- even when the message is a non-Gmail user and has not agreed to Google's legal terms. It then uses those keywords to target advertisements at you and your contacts.

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