zlacker

>>benhur+(OP)
We need regulations to enforce adequate customer service and SLAs in these huge companies.

Google is getting away with this behavior because of their monopolistic behavior. If they had competition, they would be spending billions on customer support, but because they have a monopoly, they can get away with having virtually none. This is their way of saving money and taking advantage of their monopoly. It's a shadow version of monopolistic behavior where the absence of services can be done because we have no choice. We need to politicize this issue.

Facebook is exactly the same way.

When a company reaches such dominance, and when people completely rely on a company like we all rely on Google, Facebook, et al., then we need regulations to prevent what is happening right now, which is using their monopoly to make life easier for them by not spending any money on customer support.

>>jennyy+KE1
For counterpoint, they provide products like Gmail for free at point of use because the support costs are very low (amongst other factors).

Would you prefer government change this balance by regulation, or let users decide what they want?

Many users choose very cheap typical service with a small but real risk of misery. Perhaps it's because they don't understand how miserable it can get. It's important that the bad experiences see public light so people's choices are informed.

>>robotr+CG1
Counter-counterpoint

They provide products like gmail for free because it allows them insight into people's communication which they can then leverage with search and ad networking to make way more than they could simply selling email services.

>>bluefi+eH1
Google has not done that in many years.

"These ads are shown to you based on your online activity while you're signed into Google. We will not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads." https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en

>>stromb+uJ1
All this shows me is that Google pinky promises that they don't do that.

Even if they don't scan the contents of your email bodies, you don't think they know who you are getting emails from, who you are emailing, and a boatload of info about who you do business with and such as a result?

I'm betting they do.

>>bluefi+AL1
Google engineers aren't exactly known to be loyal to the company, if Google didn't keep their promises about stuff like this I'm pretty sure it would get leaked quickly.

>>userna+iO1
The language of the "promise" is such that there is a lot of gray area and there is a lot of information contained with an email that is not the "message" of the email.

Do you honestly think they just blindly deliver emails and don't take even a single scrap of data from them for their own benefit? The biggest data aggregator on the planet is just ignoring all of that data?

Ok.

>>bluefi+lP1
> Do you honestly think they just blindly deliver emails and don't take even a single scrap of data from them for their own benefit? The biggest data aggregator on the planet is just ignoring all of that data?

Yes, here is the official statement:

> Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after this change. This decision brings Gmail ads in line with how we personalize ads for other Google products.

https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-traction-in...

Edit: The problem with google is that they collect a lot of data they can abuse, not that they are particularly known to abuse data. So the danger is that their policies change while still having your data, then there is nothing you can do.

>>userna+DR1
An interesting question is how Google defines “content”.

I’d imagine Google could build up great profiles based on metadata alone - which domains email you, which you email, etc.