By reading about the new inclementations on Google I decided to leave from Google services entirely, already stoping using Windows for 6 month and Chrome, but sttil dont sure about a gmail(Some important things are signed in gmail accont) and some services like Youtube and some android telemetry(already rooted)

  • MentalEdge
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    1 year ago

    I’m still on gmail. It’s one of the few services I genuinely think google is still doing correctly.

    But, a good way to switch, would be to get another email address, then link it to gmail, or gmail to it (via smpt and pop3/imap) and slowly start swithing all your stuff over while using both for while. The link will bring everything into one single inbox for you.

    I still have two pre-gmail inboxes routes ilto my gmail this way, they never get mail anymore, but you don’t need to entirely cut those inboxes off.

    • CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      “Still doing correctly”? They are very generous with their space allowance and you gotta wonder why. I haven’t read the privacy policy, but I wouldn’t be surprised if every email you receive, everything you buy, every account you own is feeding into advertising profiles about you as a user.

      • MentalEdge
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        1 year ago

        It definitely is. That was the deal you made to use gmail, that’s been the case since the start. The user agreement is very up front about that.

        What I mean is, is that where gmail is concerned, that trade is still one I’m willing to make. It provides enough for me to agree to hand over the snapshot of me that is my email traffic.

        With chrome, not so much. Chrome does very little to provide me with some kind of value other browsers dont, and yet it asks for everything I do online. Not just the account confirmation messages I use my email to receive. Gmail can see if I have pornhub account. Chrome can log every webpage I’ve ever opened. There’s a difference.

        Email is central for all online activity, and google is really good at it, and provides it for “free”, at a rate that’s “competitive”.

        A lot of googles other services, very much aren’t.

      • dngray@lemmy.oneM
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        1 year ago

        No, they do not read your email, they’re very clear about this, that is mostly FUD pushed by privacy providers who lack ethical marketing standards.

        We do not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads

        If you have a work or school account, you will never be shown ads in Gmail.

        When you use your personal Google account and open the promotions or social tabs in Gmail, you’ll see ads that were selected to be the most useful and relevant for you. The process of selecting and showing personalized ads in Gmail is fully automated. These ads are shown to you based on your online activity while you’re signed into Google, however we do not process email content to serve ads.

        To remember which ads you’ve dismissed, avoid showing you the same ads, and show you ads you may like better, we save your past ad interactions, like which ads you’ve clicked or dismissed.

        The place where Google makes the money is on the sites you visit with Google Adsense and your search terms being associated with a logged in Google account. Most people want to stay logged into their email (and thus their Google account), so that’s where the behavioral/adsense analytics comes in. Much fewer people use email clients these days.

        • CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          “we do not process email content to serve ads” looks very specific. We don’t process emails to serve you ads. It doesn’t say they don’t process ads to understand better what is relevent to you. It is also a very specific word, serve. Serving means displaying, but it doesn’t necessarily mean profiling or targetting.

          Ads are shown based on: “ads that were selected to be the most useful and relevant for you”. So, they’re saying they don’t directly do that, but it doesn’t cover indirect processing that would feed into this.

          These people are very clever, and hire very clever lawyers that could easily demonstrate this in a court, so they could use that information and still meet the requirements of the policy.

          Considering the astounding level of information gained from Android that feeds into their tech, it would be quite naive to believe they’ve ring fenced email as something they don’t touch. Google still serve very relevant content to people that don’t use search and don’t stay logged into email. I cannot imagine it’s a fluke. Email is a very expensive game to be in when you’re insinuating that all they want is to be an identity provider to assist in tracking web interactions.

          • dngray@lemmy.oneM
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            1 year ago

            I always understood it as they don’t parse the actual details of emails (the body) to generate an add profile. It doesn’t mean they don’t track what websites you’re visiting whilst logged in though.

            My guess to this is that it’s not accurate, for example email chains, or someone mentioning something that you have no intention of buying. As the email body is very unstructured it would be quite difficult to interpret whether those keywords should be added as an interest, having said that, with advanced AI that can parse context of a sentence they may just start doing that again if they can with accuracy.

    • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s one of the few services I genuinely think google is still doing correctly.

      One thing Proton does really well is filters. Google is, comparatively, an absolute nightmare, and they should be embarrassed.