Gmail auto sorts bulk mail, notifications, forum messages Google has introduced a new Gmail tool designed to automatically identify and sort certain types of messages, including "bulk" mail, group mailing list "forum" messages, and notifications such as online account statements and receipts. This past August, in an effort to battle the dreaded "information overload", Mountain View …
Obviously I meant when the service goes live for everyone. Google Labs is where Google tests new features before going live, isn't it?
But now that you mention it, I'd also like to know if they are already doing this kind of automatic sorting and the labs thing just makes the UI change.
I'm OK with google being paid handsomely by advertisers to match ads to keywords on my messages, however this is going too far for me.
As the article said, it's duplicating what you can do with filters, but it looks as though it's using some of the detection techniques they already apply to Spam. And some of this doesn't need anything more than looking at the headers.
The keyword matching for one mailing list I'm on is interesting--fiction in 1930s pulp style, about seaplanes. We were discussing whether the natives would regard aviation safety as a religious duty, and I saw adverts for spanners, parachutes, and a company selling clerical clothing.
Somebody drew a picture.
Well I'm sorry but it's not obvious at all to me, maybe because Google doesn't even have a privacy policy to explain what they do with Gmail (but have for their other products).
I don't even use Gmail online, just the ActiveSync interface which has no ads, so why analyse any of my information at all, is it used for anything?
This is not a matter of tinfoil hat, being able to mine the worlds personal (and even some corporate) communications is a real and enormous power which no single organization, let alone for-profit company, has ever held before. In wrong hands the consequences are unimaginable.
Yet Google only appears as this huge black box, with sometimes creepy outputs like these, brushing all concerns under their "don't do evil" rug.
The services may be free, but it's what we do and publish that pays them $29 billion a year in revenue. I think we're being naive if we don't demand to know more.
Any content of any computer server in US territory can be copies/acquired by the US government without the need of a judge and under imposed secrecy - which is Reason 1 why I won't use Google.
Secondly, notwithstanding their benefits to society, I won't entrust them with my mail as I don't know what they do to it/with it.
Still, this latest mail App seems to be more user friendly than Opera Mail 2 - Version 1 was great for my use by Version 2 never worked as I needed it to. Thunderbird 2 did.
My e-mail provider, somewhere in Scandinavia, runs a smart system and it automatically pre-sorts some categories for me - I was amazed how much 'junk' mail arrives each week - all stored away in a folder. I can also preset filters which is, in a way like this Google App, so I am very happy thank you.
...you can't actually trust _anyone_ with your email. If it's in an email, I assume it's possible to be read by anyone, just like a post card. That's why I get exceptionally annoyed when a website I've just registered with sends me my password in plain text (not to mention the fact they shouldn't actually know my password, just the hash).
Most of the time however, nobody important (or at least nobody you know) will actually read your email. But you should forget any illusion you may have of your email being secure unless everything is sent strongly encrypted, and that decryption only occurs on your client and not on their server. It doesn't matter that your email is in Scandanavia, if I happen to sit on one of the hops it passes through (something you have absolutely no control over) then I can read it. Remember that.
Some good points on both sides.
To me the the uncomfortable bit of this feature is that Google will now be collect reports and be "taught" by the users themselves about the type of each message, a crucial bit of help they didn't have before. In addition I can't see how this helps them target ads, so why do it?
If the categories become further broken down I'll not be pleased. It would just look like the perfect service for a .gov (foreing or not) to grab on to.
"So to answer your question yes you can opt out, by NOT going in to the settings and enabling experimental features then turning on smart tabs..."
... I expect google will still be scanning all your emails (isn't that the deal for getting the "free" service) and the choice you have is to enable the "look what we've found" option.
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