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TenFour · 27 Feb 2017, 06:38 AM

Almost everyone I regularly send email to uses Gmail, Outlook.com, or Apple mail (whatever it is called today). So, whether or not I have a super private email provider whatever I send is getting scanned and dumped into my profile, whether I like it or not. I wouldn't be surprised if the same is happening to most commercial places I email too. Unless you only correspond with other people using private and/or encrypted communications you are just kidding yourself that you are not being tracked. Every company you do business with learns as much as they can from your email--they know when you open their emails, on what equipment, where you do it, and what you click on, and probably how long you linger on each page, etc. So do website owners, unless you go to the trouble to use Tor and other systems. Do you also avoid using Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, etc. etc.? Personally, I wouldn't use FB at all if it wasn't required for my job--that's just too creepy putting out personal information where the entire world can see it, not just some algorithm trying to target ads to me. Not ragging on any particular person, just pointing out that the privacy ship has sailed. The good news is that I believe you are generally very safe due to being only one of billions of data points in the cloud. Yes, Google and others make tiny fractions of profit off of each one of us and in return offers us very valuable services. Just looking around it is hard to find anything close to what Gmail gives you in terms of functionality for less than $50 per year, so let's assume that Gmail costs us $50 per year in terms of our information being sold to the highest bidder. But, you still have complete control over whether or not you actually pay in dollars because you don't have to buy anything presented to you. In fact, I would guess Gmail loses money on many of us that aren't ad readers, or are not susceptible to advertising pitches. On the other hand, what is wrong if someone wants to purchase something presented to them in an ad? I guess I don't see the huge outrage over this loss of privacy.

27 Feb 2017, 06:38 AM	#278
TenFour Master of the @ Join Date: Feb 2017 Location: USA Posts: 1,734	Almost everyone I regularly send email to uses Gmail, Outlook.com, or Apple mail (whatever it is called today). So, whether or not I have a super private email provider whatever I send is getting scanned and dumped into my profile, whether I like it or not. I wouldn't be surprised if the same is happening to most commercial places I email too. Unless you only correspond with other people using private and/or encrypted communications you are just kidding yourself that you are not being tracked. Every company you do business with learns as much as they can from your email--they know when you open their emails, on what equipment, where you do it, and what you click on, and probably how long you linger on each page, etc. So do website owners, unless you go to the trouble to use Tor and other systems. Do you also avoid using Amazon, Netflix, Facebook, etc. etc.? Personally, I wouldn't use FB at all if it wasn't required for my job--that's just too creepy putting out personal information where the entire world can see it, not just some algorithm trying to target ads to me. Not ragging on any particular person, just pointing out that the privacy ship has sailed. The good news is that I believe you are generally very safe due to being only one of billions of data points in the cloud. Yes, Google and others make tiny fractions of profit off of each one of us and in return offers us very valuable services. Just looking around it is hard to find anything close to what Gmail gives you in terms of functionality for less than $50 per year, so let's assume that Gmail costs us $50 per year in terms of our information being sold to the highest bidder. But, you still have complete control over whether or not you actually pay in dollars because you don't have to buy anything presented to you. In fact, I would guess Gmail loses money on many of us that aren't ad readers, or are not susceptible to advertising pitches. On the other hand, what is wrong if someone wants to purchase something presented to them in an ad? I guess I don't see the huge outrage over this loss of privacy. Last edited by TenFour : 27 Feb 2017 at 06:54 AM.