I'll second that...

I've been thinking of writing about all the fuss about Google's Gmail service for a while now. However Extremetech got there before me. In "Gmail: Stop the Whining" Jim Lynch covers pretty much everything I would have said (apart from the digs about politics, which are in this case irrelevant to the point). Really, Google have been very upfront with detailing exactly what they are going to do and are offering anyone willing to accept the ads a very large gifthorse - just like they do with their main Google search service.

So stop whinging and don't look it in the mouth or it may just run away!

Besides, why does anyone believe that the sort of targeted advertising Google proposes is any more heinous than what current agencies like Double-Click try to do? In fact cookie tracking is far more surreptitious and underhand than Google's up front policy. Furthermore, as the author points out, why does anyone assume current webmail services are not scanning, analysing and monitoring email? They do - they scan for spam, abuse, illegal traffic and use that contravenes their service agreement. All these are done somewhat transparently without you really thinking about it.

Just because Gmail have your email address there is an assumption that they'll be using all that scanned info to target you with spam or something like that - however the goal is the dissociation of advertising from email itself, by providing it outside the context of email itself and as part of the reader. This makes it easier from them to remove genuine spam, and means that if you ever get fed up of Gmail then you can just go to some other email provider exactly as you would with any other provider. As the author points out, if you really want privacy and anonymity you really should be going somewhere other than free webmail accounts.

Also it blows my mind that people get so upset about Google's upfront policy of scanning email for personal gain to the user vs. the complacent acceptance of the total and undisclosed snooping that the Patriot act allow the government to do now? Google gets to scan just your email which is a largely anonymous moniker that you create for yourself with, if you so desire, little or no connection with your real world identity. However thanks to Patriotic I Uncle Sam gets to secretly check your actual financial information, read your actual email, tap your actual phone and basically lay claim to any personal information they can lay their hands on - and all without you ever being informed its happening or ever did happen and without any legal review or control. Get real - if you whine about Google you should be pissing your pants about Patriot!

Finally what everyone has missed so far is that Google's goal is to try and make the advertising as relevant to you as possible and hence hopefully as acceptable as forced advertising could be. You might even find yourself liking the prescence of targeted ads that are highly relevant to your needs and desires. It has long been said that the way to stop irrelevant and irritating spam and junk mail is to tell marketers as much about yourself as possible and then they can avoid sending you irrelevant advertising. Google is just trying to find a way to do that without you actually having to fill out a form. If we assume Google is abiding by their privacy agreement then really, what is the harm - seize the gift horse and run with it, you might even have a pleseant ride!

That is my big prediction - that Gmail will end up being a runaway success and in a couple of years it will be both highly immitated and lauded as a great innovation for targeted advertising. As such it could usher the death knell for the typical broadcast spam we get in our regular email, on webpages, radio and TV channels and in public spaces. Where ever advertising is Google will be able you to link your private Gmail advertising profile into that context and have the generic untargeted ads replaced with targets ones at tremendous value to advertisers and hopefully a tremendous compensation to you. Remember more effecitve advertising means less dollars wasted, cheaper products, fewer product failures, and more effective evolution of successful products.