Is Google Reading your Personal Mails?

In our moral studies lessons we were taught that its bad to read somebody's diary or letter without his/her permission, but now the scenario has changed. As it is said that everything is fair in love and war so as all the unfair activities are good when you want your business to grow.

Do you think that your G-mailbox is secure and safe? Do you think that no one can read your mails without your permission? If your answer is YES, read through this blog post to get your facts clear.

In response to question "Given the issues raised by Facebook's security holes and aggressive privacy policy changes, how secure is Gmail data within Google? Can all Google employees and interns access Gmail data?" on Quora Christopher Nguyen, who was earlier responsible for Google Apps operations at Google replied

A small number of GMail-related engineers have access to the servers as a matter of necessity to do their jobs; a very small number of people actually access the contents as a matter of necessity to do their jobs, and even then, almost always only the associated metadata. The rest have to file a request and justify any access they ever need, which is extremely rare. All have to sign paperwork re users' privacy at the risk of dismissal & legal action, knowing that whatever they do is discoverable. And ultimately, an internal culture of respecting users' privacy helps keep one another in check.

So the risk is never zero, but minimized by the factors above.

The contextual ads which are served in Gmail are triggered based on the content of the email message that your currently reading. Certainly these are bots who are scanning your message at that moment and serving ads on that basis, but Microsoft in hope to entice users to shift to Hotmail is using this point to target Google on privacy. 

Some email services, like Gmail, actually read the contents of your mail (both sent and received, even if you aren’t a Gmail user but just sending to someone who is) in order to decide what kind of ads to serve up to you. They may call it “scanning” and attempt to equate it with less invasive activities like “checking for spam” but it’s quite different. For you, and the people you send mail to, it’s not spam, it’s personal.

Further, people tend to stay logged into their email service throughout the day. So all Internet searches you do with Google become tied to that same identity. 

Microsoft has also released a video featuring Gmail Man who highlights this particular Gmail behavior. Check out this video:

 Thanks to g-mail users on youtube for equal number of dislikes :)  

Google Algorithm Updates in 2011

Every SEO professional wants to keep track of algorithmic changes made by search engines specially Google. Falling Up Media created an interesting infographic listing all the major algorithm updates in 2011.

So check out this interesting and colorful infographic and stay on top of all the search engine algorithm changes made in 2011.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Google Censoring Offensive Images on Google Plus

Google has stepped into shoes of Censor Board when it comes to showing up your profile pic on Google Plus. Don't get surprised if your profile picture is removed automatically by the Big Daddy.
In an instance when earlier this week, Tech Crunch writer MG Siegler found that his Google Plus profile picture suddenly vanished from his profile. Thinking it as bug, it was re uploaded, but it was again removed by Google with following message:

As the first point of interaction with a user’s profile, all profile photos on Google+ are reviewed to make sure they are in line with our User Content and Conduct Policy. Our policy page states, “Your Profile Picture cannot include mature or offensive content.” Your profile photo was taken down as a violation of this policy. If you have further questions about the policies on Google+ you can visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/+/policy/content.html, or click the “Content Policy” link located in the footer of Google+ pages.

This censorship has raised a debatable point about deciding - What exactly is offensive? Body language and signs differ from country to country across the world. Thumbs Up is a praising gesture in US where as it insulting gesture in Middle East. Okay symbol which signifies approval or pleasure in western countries, has a offensive meaning in Brazil.

Will Google think about it? Will the next censorship will be on text in Google Plus. We have to wait for answers to these questions. The success journey of Google Plus will depend entirely on how well they tackle such questions.