The Internet Ad You Are About to See Has Already Read Your E-Mail

When Google announced in April that it would test a free Web-based e-mail service that offered users vastly more storage space than its rivals, it introduced one twist – the ads that users see when they read their mail would be related to the subject mentioned in the message. So if your friend sends you a message about his vacation in Florida, you will see text ads for beach resorts to the right of the message. When your mother writes about her new digital camera, photography ads appear. The ads appear on messages received by Gmail users; the e-mail sender does not need to be a user of Gmail. Privacy advocates were deeply offended by a product that scanned private e-mail and could potentially send offensive ads to e-mail recipients – and for many, those aspects of Gmail remain troubling. [The New York Times]