A Little Reminder That Google Reads Your Email, from Microsoft CEO
None other than Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made mention of how Google’s privacy policy differs from Microsoft’s, when he delivered a speech in the U.K. during the weekend, as Ed Moltzen reports:
The software giant’s chief made the remarks during a discussion about consumer software revenue models, and Ballmer used the dialogue as an entry point to take his shot at Google. The video is available to watch via the web site Mydeo.com. Ballmer made his remarks after an audience member asked him if an advertising model could support software business in the future. The CEO said a combination of models – - commercial and ad-paid – - would go forward.
“What’s a good example? Will online publications be largely ad-funded as things move from the physical world to the online world?” Ballmer said. “I think the answer is yes.
“Have we seen the migration of things even like email? . . . Our Windows Live Hotmail, in and of itself, doesn’t generate much ad revenue. So we’ve had to put, essentially, a whole portal around it because the traffic around it is very valuable but it’s not very easily monetized in the context of mail.
“Google’s had the same experience, even though they read your mail and we don’t,” Ballmer said, to chuckles and and a couple of gasps in the audience. “That’s just a factual statement, not even to be pejorative. The theory was if we read your mail, if somebody read your mail, they would know what to talk to you about. It’s not working out as brilliantly as the concept was laid out.”
As Ed Moltzen notes, Ballmer may be stretching the point:
Google, which operates the free Gmail service, publicly acknowledges that its “processes personal information” via cookies and on its servers, so it can provide “our products and services to users,” as well as to keep its service running well.
Google processes personal information on our servers in the United States of America and in other countries. In some cases, we process personal information on a server outside your own country. We may process personal information to provide our own services. In some cases, we may process personal information on behalf of and according to the instructions of a third party, such as our advertising partners.
Google doesn’t say it “reads” email, however.
Privacy Maven recommends you read the privacy policy and decide for yourself if Google is “reading” or not.
