Google’s forthcoming new email service, Gmail, has raised the ire of privacy advocates everywhere. They are concerned because Google’s service will feature targeted ads based on keywords used in the email messages. Google has indicated that no human eyes will ever see the contents of a message.
However, this assurance is little comfort to some. The California Senate has now passed a bill [1] limiting what the ads can do.
I’m all for privacy, but why does the government need to get involved here? The answer to this problem is much simpler. If the California legislature had only consulted me, I would have saved them thousands of dollars. If one does not want one’s email read by Google’s bots, one should not get a Gmail account! Problem solved.