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But google DO go through every message to sell ads. How is this pathetic? Some people don't like the fact that their emails are used in that way, so focusing on that is just marketing.
No different to google running ads for chrome saying "it's faster"... it IS, and some people care about that.
I feel like MS is trying to mislead people into believing that GMail employees go through your mail (they superpose inquisitive human eyes over the gmail video for instance).
It's quite a different issue if it's just a computer program parsing your data. After all, SMTP programs go through your your email too.
I'm all for people caring more about their privacy and be more educated about giving their personal infos online, but the solution to that is PGP, not Outlook.
Microsoft makes Microsoft look bad, unfortunately for them. But it seems to be in their company's DNA to spread FUD about others. It's like crack to them.
This is surprising -- I know! -- but competing companies sometimes advertise against each other. Microsoft have been doing this for quite a while (see Gmail man [1]) and they seem to think that the privacy aspect is enough of a weakness in the Google armor that it's an effective campaign. So far I don't think Microsoft have had as many problems on the privacy front as Google or Facebook so this is probably not a rash decision on their part.
I don't think it is that unsurprising either, nor do I have a problem with this kind of advertising. My only gripe would be that I believe you can opt-out of targeted gmail ads now so it would appear this is either out of date or inaccurate.
Maybe because DuckDuckGo differentiates themselves better. Microsoft is more of the same - maybe marginally better in one respect (allowing opt-out) but atrocious in many others - almost every article I've seen has had no trouble balancing the story with talk of Microsoft's past transgressions.
On the flip side, I agree that Google should allow you to opt out of this, but it's pretty easy to use any email client to access your gmail e.g. Thunderbird, Apple Mail, even (shudders) Outlook / Outlook Express
So the only thing those ads are actually paying for are Google's UI.
When you judge someone this aggressively, expect your reputation to be taken into account when people evaluate your judgment. The difference in reputation between DDG and Microsoft is huge.
What issue, though? That your email is scanned by an algorithm to determine relevancy for ads? Guess what, your email is scanned by an algorithm on outlook.com too, to determine whether it's spam. It's exactly the same thing.
No it's not. Because I WANT spam protection... I don't want ads.
Just like it's fine for an electrician to enter my house to fix a power point. It is NOT okay for anyone to enter my house in order to sell me random things.
If you don't want it, don't use Gmail. It's not fine to call an electrician to your house to fix the power point in return for you letting them sell you random things, and then say "no, I don't want the things, I just want the fix!"
It's not a breach of your privacy any more than spam filters reading your email is.
I'm pretty sure that is exactly the point Microsoft are making with this campaign.
They are using the fact you can't opt out of a "feature" as an excuse to opt out of a "product".
They are leveraging peoples perception of 'Privacy' to do that.
Really do you think buying an Audi will mean you can kiss the girl at Prom? Or by wearing Calvin Klein you'll look amazing from every angle? ... No, Ads lie all the time... Chrome isn't technically "Faster" but they still run ads that say as much...
You are conflating two different issues, "I don't like seeing ads" and "algorithms reading my mail is a privacy breach". If you don't like seeing ads, I think even Gmail themselves would tell you not to use Gmail. But it's not a breach of privacy!
> I'm pointing our privacy was just a vehicle that was being used to deliver a message, and that message is valid
The vehicle is not, though. There is no issue of privacy. They might as well have said "Gmail kills babies, switch to outlook", it's exactly as true (which is, to say, not at all).
You have been profiled, and the profile works over time and across content. That data exists, and is sold to advertisers. The profile is about you, including private discourse between, say, you and family, and numerous research papers have shown it ties to exactly you even if it's supposedly anonymous. This is absolutely a privacy "issue" even if it's not clear to you personally how this might be a privacy breach.
That's far different than spam, where the messages are profiled, not the people exchanging them.
There are two different ways ads can be displayed. Either the message is scanned for a topic and ads are displayed to you based on it, or they build a profile about you, like you described. You can opt out of that:
Unfortunately for you, you can't pick and choose what you want when Google are providing you with a free email service. Generating personalized ads is how they make money from this venture.
As the saying goes: "If you're not paying for it; You're the product, not the customer."
Google is horrible for a company's IT security team though. Very difficult to lock things down from a firewall level when Google won't tell you the IP addresses individual apps run on (say if I want to allow Google Hangouts but not Chrome Remote Desktop), and some of their apps won't work properly through a proxy or VPN. There's enough cases where Google has been unable/unwilling to help configure that someone could easily begin to question their value.
Google seemingly doesn't want you to allow access to one thing but not another; it's an all or nothing proposition. Their heavy use of load-balancing exacerbates this issue.
You do not lock the apps by IP, because they run on many different machines in different data centers. What is running on specific machine is dynamic, based on momentary requirements.
If you do not want to allow Google Hangouts, use your administrator console.
It's not quite that simple due to the VPN and proxy configurations we have. Google Hangouts just will not work over a VPN unless it's allowed directly through the firewall, which requires a firewall rule. Typically firewall rules are based on IP addresses and ports. Allowed Google Hangouts (which we want) also has the side effect of allowing Chrome Remote Desktop (which we don't want) directly through the firewall.
"You are doing it wrong" is not an acceptable answer in an enterprise environment unless the vendor is willing to work with their customers to make sure it's possible to actually do it right. But that would mean the vendor would need real customer service...
You're right. Also, Microsoft proves that Google doesn't actually read your email in their video example, because if Google did, they wouldn't send you an ad for a free pet exam if you put your pet down. They'd send you to a pet store.
Well, no. It's not the same thing.
Scanning my content so that you make more money is different from scanning my content so that I get less spam.
The second is a service.
If you don't encrypt your email (almost nobody does it) every server serving your email can access the email text. The point is what they do with it. If they use it to make something useful for me (allowing me to read email) that's OK. Targeting ads is, as a minimum, borderline...
You knew this when you signed up. Plus, it's not a privacy issue. No human is sitting there, reading your emails. How is the spam algorithm reading your emails fine from a privacy standpoint while the ads algorithm isn't?
How do you know Google doesn't create and store an ad profile based on what your email contents usually are? Example: StravosK is likely to have high cholesterol and too much debt.
How do I know Microsoft (or any other provider) doesn't?
Anything can happen but Google admits that it scans your email to serve relevant ads. Now is that data deleted after that email or do they note that you have x, y and possibly z?
Offhand, I can't think of anything that algorithmic spam removal can do to compromise my privacy. I don't have to be careful around spam removal.
Targeted ads, on the other hand, can provide a lot of information to the advertiser if I respond to the ad. If targeted advertising is showing up in my email, I have to make sure that I do not respond to the ads. Essentially, a targeted ad is a little privacy land mine that I can easily step on if I don't keep my guard up.
I've never accidentally clicked on an ad, I think they're pretty out of the way in that regard. If that's what worries you, sure. Otherwise, the fact that you want to respond to the ad can provide a lot of information to the advertiser. If you're worried about that, just don't respond.
Or if you are really interested in the product, just search for it again in incognito window, so that they cannot possibly relate the two campaigns (assuming you are worried the advertizer had a way to tell that the campaign has been clicked through a gmail ad, which afaik is not possible)
Yep, I don't think there's any way for them to track that you're the person associated with the email if you search for it in a new tab, but an incognito window can't hurt.
In an odd twist, providing more information to the advertiser could also be doing you a service. The more information the advertisers have, the more targeted the ads, and thus a higher CPC. The increased revenue for Google can mean either more money for products for you (perpetuating the products->ads->products cycle) or the ability for them to show fewer ads.
It is not, a spamfilter tries to understand if the message is legitimate, while an ad injection algorithm tries to understand the message to extract your interests from it. One of the algorithms is actually trying to extract privacy relevant information, while in the case of a spamfilter any such data is just coincidental.
So? Where's the breach? An algorithm knowing the subject of the message doesn't worry me, as long as all they do with it is display ads from the same broad category. If they're doing something they're not telling us, well, any other email provider could also be doing this.
Whatever they think will work for them. It's just not striking a chord with the HN audience, clearly. I find it difficult to believe that it would strike a chord with any large audiences, but perhaps their focus groups say otherwise.
For me the Scroogle site gives off the same sort of vibe that a conspiracy theory site does. It doesn't look like it came out of Microsoft. Perhaps it's not meant to. Perhaps they want it to look like a grassroots movement against Google. In the end everyone sees the Outlook logo, though. Then it feels a little deceptive.
Will be pretty interesting. Feels like this is going to massively blow up in their face. Never been a fan of attack adds especially if you can improve your own product instead of making the other one look bad. Just a bad mindset to try to blame the other guy.
The irony of Microsoft using privacy/security to attack another company is not lost on me.
Guess what, those mails can be read if your OS gets exlpoited over and over and there's a backdoor on most joe shmoe home computers anyways :P
That being said the campaign obviously has a point. <insert rant on educating the masses about encryption>
> Never been a fan of attack adds especially if you can improve your own product instead of making the other one look bad. Just a bad mindset to try to blame the other guy.
It's not a one-man product that had to decide whether to focus on improving or attack ads - product people will work on improving it regardless of whether the marketing people decide on positive or attack adverts.
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its Microsoft for sure...really Microsoft directly attacking Google..would be interesting to see Google's response..i dont think they will sit calm now.
I think a lot of people on here somehow got the idea that Google is transmitting your personal information to the advertisers/clients, which is obviously nonsense.
All this does is build a rough profile of your interests and then shows you adverts relevant to those interests.
It's just an attack full of misleading information for those who are less informed, spam filters also "read" your messages. I don't see why a computer reading your messages to produce targeted advertisements is bad anyway, it's an automated process the same as spam filtering.
Does outlook.com still put adverts at the end of your emails like hotmail.com used to?
Microsoft's example in the video proves Google doesn't actually READ the emails they just apply a computer algorithm. The example was of a cat named Calico, and then they showed a free pet exam advert, and then revealed the cat was put down in the email. They made a point to say you wouldn't need a free pet exam if the family pet died.
But it proves Google doesn't invade your privacy; they merely apply a computer algorithm to connect ads with emails.
This is the worst advertising method possible, rather than making a good product and focusing on its advantages towards competition, they prefer to paint them in bad light.
Under 'My Data' it stores Bing Searches and takes guesses as to your 'Interests'. How does it do that exactly? Operationally, how different is Outlook.com a.k.a Hotmail, compared to Google? Both are free, and nothing is for free in this world. So, Microsoft also have an angle.
> With the Microsoft Personal Data Dashboard (beta), you can choose
not to receive personalized ads on websites that use the Microsoft
Advertising Platform by not allowing Microsoft Advertising to use
your information.
> Information used by Microsoft Advertising
> The Microsoft Advertising Platform customizes personalized ads based
on different types of information, including but not limited to:
> Bing searches
> Interests
> Profile
> What does it mean not to allow Microsoft Advertising to use your information?
> Well, first, it doesn't mean you will stop getting ads or see fewer
ads; but, it does mean that the ads you get won't be personalized anymore
by Microsoft Advertising. Microsoft will continue to collect information
for other uses, such as delivering content that is personalized for you;
for example, the news articles displayed on MSN and the results you get
when you search for software updates.
I guess, at least I can opt-out. Google doesn't allow me to opt-out of their creepiness. Saying that though, even though GMail creeps me out, but I'm addicted to the user interface.
Excessive and invasive email scanning and analysis is.
It's really a bait-n-switch technique. They are substituting a bigger and more important issue with something tactile but of a superficial value. "Your tumor hurts? We have a Tylenol for that."
No, reading personal email to deliver advertisements is creepy. It's better than it used to be but we all remember seeing things like casket advertisements when an email mentioned dead code, etc etc.
It's creepy, and I would gladly pay google monthly to prevent them from abusing my privacy.
But Google doesn't want money from me, it wants to abuse my privacy. That's far more profitable.
It's unfortunate but too many services point to my gmail for me to be able to switch.
Let's define what "read" means in this context. A computer program, most likely a C++ binary, takes the string of your emails, splits on U+0020 and sends the resulting array through a series of algorithms like Levenshtein distance to match to its database of ads.
Text mining has come a long way since 1985, so I don't think that's how it's done (in fact I know it's not done that way), but I guess what you mean is that no human ever looks at the data. That's possible, but not reassuring.
Many of the shady purposes this data could be misused for don't require a human to ever read it. Say, one day, that C++ binary computes a score that indicates how reliable, credit worthy, dangerous, healthy, honest or skilled you are.
Say another C++ binary makes a decision that influences your life based on such a score. A decision on health insurance, banking, job applications, security matters, etc. Is that better, just because no human ever looked at the data and giggled because you searched for some embarrassing disease?
No, but that's a separate problem from algorithmic ads. When Google shares personal data and not merely statistics about personal data I'll being doing the call-to-arms along side you. What Microsoft wants you to think, however, is that there is an office full of people some where reading your emails and picking ads that they think you might respond to.
Some would say that sharing a computed score that claims to say something about me is not sharing my personal data. But I don't even think that Google would compute and sell such a score at this point in time. I trust them to some degree, maybe even a bit more than I trust others.
What I'm concerned about is that data that allows such a score to be computed is out there and I have no way to control it or take it back. Google could change and start to interpret their privacy policy slightly differently. The data could be stolen or accessed by governments. Many things could happen that are outside of my control.
But I agree that Microsoft may try to insinuate something different from what I'm concerend about.
But what business sense does it make for Google to sell the data directly? You can only sell data once; targeted advertising can be sold over and over again.
It could make business sense for someone like Google or LinkedIn or Facebook to provide a service to employers to score job applicants in terms of loyalty, skill, reliability, security risk or whatever. It could make business sense for Google to provide credit risk scoring to banks or lifestyle/health related scoring to health insurance companies. They would not have sell our personal data to do that. They would just compute scores.
Granted it would not make business sense for Google to do that right now. But the future might look very differently. What about a desperate future Google that has been deprived of ad income by regulation happy governments or threatened by anti-trust legislation? What about a Google disrupted and superseded by some other new and cool company, lead by someone put in place by activist investors to monetize its assets?
Things change, but our ability to react to such changes is very limited when it comes to taking back information that has been put out there.
Logging in to Gmail is slower than Outlook in my experience, it even got a loading bar. I got IE9 right now so I can't test it (I'm not at my own pc), but this is how it feels to me.
You may have a point. I use Chrome predominantly. It might well be that Google optimize GMail for Chrome and Microsoft optimize Hotmail/Outlook.com for IE.
I find it hilarious that I emotionally support Google enough that my immediate reaction is "HEY ITS NOT SO BAD" when I see this page; and then roll my eyes at the petition. At the same time I don't use facebook for privacy issues and the thing I am always going to do tomorrow is set up my own mail server. Brains are funny like that.
When an algorithm sifts through my e-mail the result is that I see a more targeted ad.
When I mess up and inappropriately share something on Facebook it is obvious to lots of people in my life. (And, of course, Facebook tends to vomit up some sort of privacy outrage every five months, so there is always the nagging worry that something one did share in a reasonable way is now being seen in a way one didn't intend under the old "rules of the road".
While some people may care about privacy as an abstract first principle, I imagine many people are more concerned about the consequences of other people knowing something about them.
Point taken, it's not only an emotional reaction; I get that context based ads aren't the same as someone reading my email. I was really just making light of what is an obvious contradiction in my values. We would be naive to think that all google is doing is spam filtering and context-based ads. They are also giving up personal info thousands of times a year at government request, etc.
The main thing is not owning my own data. Google owns my data and I am powerless, more or less, against them. When other companies own data I get all indignant about it; but rationalize it when it's Google.
If you have an account you can delete everything (including your email), remove data from specific Google services, or adjust some of their ad targeting assumptions. I cannot remember how to get to the ad targeting settings, but you can find it if you need it.
Yeah, it negative, but with a funny twist to it. The problem is that most people lack a sense of humor and might take it too seriously. Though its quite ironic that MS is playing the privacy card. Its not like Google is a perfect company. They are the new MS. Even PG mentioned it in one of his essays.
Aggressive, negative advertising is the violence of the marketing world, and as Asimov said "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
I don't have any problem with aggressive advertising if it's done well, creatively, thoughtfully, intelligently. This is none of those things. Creativity usually precludes aggressive negativity (not always, but usually).
I find the expectation that anyone would 'sign' such a ham fisted attempt at a populist petition, one clearly designed by a creativity starved agency to be offensive to all sentient beings online.
177 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 220 ms ] threadGranted, from past MS behavior it would not be a surprise if this was really their work...
No different to google running ads for chrome saying "it's faster"... it IS, and some people care about that.
Saying that IE is "slower" is another.
Likewise Microsoft could have made a ad that showed how they protect your privacy, instead of pointing how their biggest competitor don't.
It's quite a different issue if it's just a computer program parsing your data. After all, SMTP programs go through your your email too.
I'm all for people caring more about their privacy and be more educated about giving their personal infos online, but the solution to that is PGP, not Outlook.
http://www.theverge.com/microsoft/2012/2/2/2766215/gmail-man...
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXqrTfOWx60
But when Microsoft does it, it's pathetic and scammy?
EDIT: And if someone did say that, who says they're the same people who were in praise of DuckDuckGo?
On the flip side, I agree that Google should allow you to opt out of this, but it's pretty easy to use any email client to access your gmail e.g. Thunderbird, Apple Mail, even (shudders) Outlook / Outlook Express
So the only thing those ads are actually paying for are Google's UI.
Just like it's fine for an electrician to enter my house to fix a power point. It is NOT okay for anyone to enter my house in order to sell me random things.
It's not a breach of your privacy any more than spam filters reading your email is.
I'm pretty sure that is exactly the point Microsoft are making with this campaign.
They are using the fact you can't opt out of a "feature" as an excuse to opt out of a "product".
They are leveraging peoples perception of 'Privacy' to do that.
Really do you think buying an Audi will mean you can kiss the girl at Prom? Or by wearing Calvin Klein you'll look amazing from every angle? ... No, Ads lie all the time... Chrome isn't technically "Faster" but they still run ads that say as much...
Or are you trolling?
"If you don't want gmail splashing ads all over your messages, switch to outlook."
No need to be a jerk about it and accuse me of trolling.
The vehicle is not, though. There is no issue of privacy. They might as well have said "Gmail kills babies, switch to outlook", it's exactly as true (which is, to say, not at all).
That's far different than spam, where the messages are profiled, not the people exchanging them.
https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en
As the saying goes: "If you're not paying for it; You're the product, not the customer."
https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en#o...
http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6...
In general Google Apps is a great product for small-medium sized businesses. As is Office 365.
Google seemingly doesn't want you to allow access to one thing but not another; it's an all or nothing proposition. Their heavy use of load-balancing exacerbates this issue.
You do not lock the apps by IP, because they run on many different machines in different data centers. What is running on specific machine is dynamic, based on momentary requirements.
If you do not want to allow Google Hangouts, use your administrator console.
"You are doing it wrong" is not an acceptable answer in an enterprise environment unless the vendor is willing to work with their customers to make sure it's possible to actually do it right. But that would mean the vendor would need real customer service...
Anything can happen but Google admits that it scans your email to serve relevant ads. Now is that data deleted after that email or do they note that you have x, y and possibly z?
Targeted ads, on the other hand, can provide a lot of information to the advertiser if I respond to the ad. If targeted advertising is showing up in my email, I have to make sure that I do not respond to the ads. Essentially, a targeted ad is a little privacy land mine that I can easily step on if I don't keep my guard up.
For me the Scroogle site gives off the same sort of vibe that a conspiracy theory site does. It doesn't look like it came out of Microsoft. Perhaps it's not meant to. Perhaps they want it to look like a grassroots movement against Google. In the end everyone sees the Outlook logo, though. Then it feels a little deceptive.
The irony of Microsoft using privacy/security to attack another company is not lost on me.
Guess what, those mails can be read if your OS gets exlpoited over and over and there's a backdoor on most joe shmoe home computers anyways :P
That being said the campaign obviously has a point. <insert rant on educating the masses about encryption>
It's not a one-man product that had to decide whether to focus on improving or attack ads - product people will work on improving it regardless of whether the marketing people decide on positive or attack adverts.
As long as they aren't releasing my mail for all to see, and it's an automated thing... so what.
I think a lot of people on here somehow got the idea that Google is transmitting your personal information to the advertisers/clients, which is obviously nonsense.
All this does is build a rough profile of your interests and then shows you adverts relevant to those interests.
http://www.webpronews.com/is-bing-right-about-people-getting...
Does outlook.com still put adverts at the end of your emails like hotmail.com used to?
(I didn't know they were paid listings.)
This new message I don't find interesting because it tells me something I already know (Google reads all my Gmail mail).
For reference, I hate both companies equally!
But it proves Google doesn't invade your privacy; they merely apply a computer algorithm to connect ads with emails.
Under 'My Data' it stores Bing Searches and takes guesses as to your 'Interests'. How does it do that exactly? Operationally, how different is Outlook.com a.k.a Hotmail, compared to Google? Both are free, and nothing is for free in this world. So, Microsoft also have an angle.
Digging further you'll find information on Microsoft Advertising, which is something I don't remember actively opting in to, but I appear to be registered for: https://data.choice.microsoft.com/MyChoices/MSAdvertising
It states, and I quote:
> About Microsoft Advertising
> With the Microsoft Personal Data Dashboard (beta), you can choose not to receive personalized ads on websites that use the Microsoft Advertising Platform by not allowing Microsoft Advertising to use your information.
> Information used by Microsoft Advertising
> The Microsoft Advertising Platform customizes personalized ads based on different types of information, including but not limited to:
> Bing searches
> Interests
> Profile
> What does it mean not to allow Microsoft Advertising to use your information?
> Well, first, it doesn't mean you will stop getting ads or see fewer ads; but, it does mean that the ads you get won't be personalized anymore by Microsoft Advertising. Microsoft will continue to collect information for other uses, such as delivering content that is personalized for you; for example, the news articles displayed on MSN and the results you get when you search for software updates.
I guess, at least I can opt-out. Google doesn't allow me to opt-out of their creepiness. Saying that though, even though GMail creeps me out, but I'm addicted to the user interface.
http://www.aboutads.info/choices/
Excessive and invasive email scanning and analysis is.
It's really a bait-n-switch technique. They are substituting a bigger and more important issue with something tactile but of a superficial value. "Your tumor hurts? We have a Tylenol for that."
You seem to comprehend how Google runs its business and pays for its services. Isn't it incredibly ludicrous to call it creepy?
It's creepy, and I would gladly pay google monthly to prevent them from abusing my privacy.
But Google doesn't want money from me, it wants to abuse my privacy. That's far more profitable.
It's unfortunate but too many services point to my gmail for me to be able to switch.
One at a time. In a few weeks or months, you'll be done. The point isn't to redirect all email away from Gmail, but to starve it for usable content.
You can check multiple mailboxes for as long a transition period as you need. Maybe in perpetuity.
Many of the shady purposes this data could be misused for don't require a human to ever read it. Say, one day, that C++ binary computes a score that indicates how reliable, credit worthy, dangerous, healthy, honest or skilled you are.
Say another C++ binary makes a decision that influences your life based on such a score. A decision on health insurance, banking, job applications, security matters, etc. Is that better, just because no human ever looked at the data and giggled because you searched for some embarrassing disease?
What I'm concerned about is that data that allows such a score to be computed is out there and I have no way to control it or take it back. Google could change and start to interpret their privacy policy slightly differently. The data could be stolen or accessed by governments. Many things could happen that are outside of my control.
But I agree that Microsoft may try to insinuate something different from what I'm concerend about.
Granted it would not make business sense for Google to do that right now. But the future might look very differently. What about a desperate future Google that has been deprived of ad income by regulation happy governments or threatened by anti-trust legislation? What about a Google disrupted and superseded by some other new and cool company, lead by someone put in place by activist investors to monetize its assets?
Things change, but our ability to react to such changes is very limited when it comes to taking back information that has been put out there.
OK..... how about $5/mo for Google Apps for business? They say ads can be disabled.
If I was willing to do that: I'd just leave Gmail for a superior service!
Here's the source:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/animation...
When an algorithm sifts through my e-mail the result is that I see a more targeted ad.
When I mess up and inappropriately share something on Facebook it is obvious to lots of people in my life. (And, of course, Facebook tends to vomit up some sort of privacy outrage every five months, so there is always the nagging worry that something one did share in a reasonable way is now being seen in a way one didn't intend under the old "rules of the road".
While some people may care about privacy as an abstract first principle, I imagine many people are more concerned about the consequences of other people knowing something about them.
The main thing is not owning my own data. Google owns my data and I am powerless, more or less, against them. When other companies own data I get all indignant about it; but rationalize it when it's Google.
I'd rather Google give me ads than turn over private conversations to The Met.
I don't have any problem with aggressive advertising if it's done well, creatively, thoughtfully, intelligently. This is none of those things. Creativity usually precludes aggressive negativity (not always, but usually).
I find the expectation that anyone would 'sign' such a ham fisted attempt at a populist petition, one clearly designed by a creativity starved agency to be offensive to all sentient beings online.