Yahoo and AOL Data Mine Emails for Advertising

AlphaAtlas

AlphaAtlas

[H]ard|Gawd
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Verizon, owner of Yahoo and AOL, is allegedly scraping email inboxes for information to sell to advertisers. The report claims that the practice has been going on for years, and that the service analyzes over 200 million inboxes. While Verizon does say that the system is supposed to exclude personal emails, this still goes against the industry trend of respecting user privacy. After receiving considerable backlash, Google recently stopped their own email scanning practices, and Microsoft claims they've never done it at all.

“E-mail is an expensive system,” Sharp said. “I think it's reasonable and ethical to expect the value exchange, if you’ve got this mail service and there is advertising going on.”
 
USPS mail is an expensive system, but the post office never opened your letters to see what you and your friends or associates were doing so they could sell advertising.

This thought process is absurd.

If the ISPs are aggrevated about costs, raise the price or charge a fee for Email.
But analysis of your private communications is just over and above.
 
As someone on /. commented, Yahoo is the only company honest enough to admit they are currently scanning emails. Google now says they don't but then that is what they said about location services and we know how that turned out. My assumption anymore has to be that if it is hosted for free, it is being data mined somehow. The really bad thing is even if YOUR mail host doesn't scan, your responses to emails from folks using evil hosts will be scanned.

At least the current webmail interface, while still sucking big time, lets you block delete emails. Funny how they keep bugging me to turn off my ad blocker. As if.
 
Is anyone actually suprised by this?

When are people going to finally figure out that any free service is not really free? They have to be making money somehow, and guess how they do it? ta-da,...if you guessed "they sell data they collect" you win a cookie!!!
 
BSmith said:
Is anyone actually suprised by this?

When are people going to finally figure out that any free service is not really free? They have to be making money somehow, and guess how they do it? ta-da,...if you guessed "they sell data they collect" you win a cookie!!!
Click to expand...

I'm not surprised.

At this point I'll be surprised if a company doesn't data mine.
 
Google maintained that they psuedonomized the data so technically they couldn't add target you. So I'm not sure if Google stopped scanning or stopped scanning for targetted ads. There was a period where people were getting creeped out.

But Googe being cute, I completely believe they use other data to circumvent the psuedomonization. So if you ask about gmail specifically gmail identities are protected but withing google as a whole, not necessarily.
 
Everyone data mines. You can't even have a conversation without your phone listening to you. Ever notice "suggested" ads pop up based on something you might have said a few hours ago? Literally everything is listening and mining from your correspondence. I wonder how long everyone is going to tolerate it. Nothing in your life is private anymore, and personal information is quickly propagated and even stolen these days.
 
magoo said:
USPS mail is an expensive system, but the post office never opened your letters to see what you and your friends or associates were doing so they could sell advertising.
Click to expand...

Since when is usps free?
 
The only way this ends is for people to ignore all ads on the Internet. Once that happens, then it will follow that marketing companies will stop paying for data which is no longer helping them.

The other way it happens occurs if you manage to legislate away data mining.


Of course, the next thing that happens is nothing on the Internet will be free anymore.

Pick your poison people.
 
BSmith said:
The only way this ends is for people to ignore all ads on the Internet. Once that happens, then it will follow that marketing companies will stop paying for data which is no longer helping them.

The other way it happens occurs if you manage to legislate away data mining.


Of course, the next thing that happens is nothing on the Internet will be free anymore.

Pick your poison people.
Click to expand...

You know data mining isn't just on the internet, right?

You walk into wal-mart and they have a facial recognition system which watches your behavior in the store. Everything you pickup, look at, and purchase. They build a database off of you and claim it's to help prevent shoplifting. They're not just keeping that data to themselves, it's worth too much. Other stores do this also.

The days of those paranoid people thinking their microwave, vcr, tv, and picture frames are listening to them aren't just paranoid delusions anymore. All smart-devices are tracking everything we say and do. The data is getting sold, analyzed, and used to shape things. What sells best? What product sucks? What is this person talking about? Let's show them an ad or video based on key words so they'll click it or buy it and make us more money.

As for Windows 10 - if you don't think they data mining you're very wrong.

At work, I sent a skype message to a co-worker asking if he's seen any stolen valor videos. I haven't watched one for years but the topic came up. I didn't verbally say anything or look it up on the internet. The only place I typed it was in Skype.

Two days later Youtube suggested a Stolen Valor video.
I'm not logged into any google services at work.

Reading all this it makes me sound paranoid - but I'm not. I know they're listening. You should too.
 
“E-mail is an expensive system,” Sharp said. “I think it’s reasonable and ethical to expect the value exchange, if you’ve got this mail service and there is advertising going on.”
Click to expand...
LOL, WUT!?

Said as someone who stands to make money from this.
 
scojer said:
You know data mining isn't just on the internet, right?

You walk into wal-mart and they have a facial recognition system which watches your behavior in the store. Everything you pickup, look at, and purchase. They build a database off of you and claim it's to help prevent shoplifting. They're not just keeping that data to themselves, it's worth too much. Other stores do this also.

The days of those paranoid people thinking their microwave, vcr, tv, and picture frames are listening to them aren't just paranoid delusions anymore. All smart-devices are tracking everything we say and do. The data is getting sold, analyzed, and used to shape things. What sells best? What product sucks? What is this person talking about? Let's show them an ad or video based on key words so they'll click it or buy it and make us more money.

As for Windows 10 - if you don't think they data mining you're very wrong.

At work, I sent a skype message to a co-worker asking if he's seen any stolen valor videos. I haven't watched one for years but the topic came up. I didn't verbally say anything or look it up on the internet. The only place I typed it was in Skype.

Two days later Youtube suggested a Stolen Valor video.
I'm not logged into any google services at work.

Reading all this it makes me sound paranoid - but I'm not. I know they're listening. You should too.
Click to expand...

I should not have limited my scope to the Internet. Of course I know retail establishments data mine. In some cases it is obvious while others, not so much. For instance, the cases where I do not mind it are when I use my grocery card. They are watching my buying habits along with what I buy, and in return I get discounts on many items I regularly purchase. So, they are paying me for my data. I do not mind that case as I am getting a direct benefit to the data they are collecting.

At any rate, one has to wonder why there are no laws/regulations/codes requiring companies to disclose the data they collect from you and give you the oppertunity to opt out, at the minimum.

Oh, I do not use Windows 10, and I have removed the telemetry updates for Windows 7. Still they get some stuff, just not as much as they would like. I do not use Skype. This is the only forum I play in. I do not use Google, nor any of its products. I have a dumb flip phone,...and I secure my tin foil hat with bungee cords.
 
The problem with data mining. Is when its gathered from all the different sources. Then it can be used to figure out where you live, who you vote for, if you're married or single. Your age, religion, sex. Basically every single thing about your life is known.
Its only an issue when it leads to something bad, then a law suit happens.
 
And this is exactly why I run my own exchange/web/nextcloud etc servers at home.
 
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