Gmail create account free free#

One group of plaintiffs in a recent class-action lawsuit were non-Gmail users who sent messages to Gmail accounts.

One problem is that not all the people affected have agreed to Google’s privacy policy. People still lined up to be accepted as early beta users of the service because it was slickly designed, included ample amounts of storage, and was excellent at filtering out spam. When Gmail made its debut in 2004, it was upfront about the fact that it would show contextual ads targeted to match the topic of e-mail threads. And critics say the service doesn’t adequately disclose what it is doing with customers’ information. However, many of the details about how exactly Google’s program works have been kept confidential. These are usually laid out in the lengthy terms and conditions and privacy policies that customers barely skim before hitting “agree.” It’s also led to a number of similar privacy lawsuits against other companies, including LinkedIn, Yahoo and Facebook.Īny company that collects personal information has to advise its customers what it is doing with their information and comply with any relevant privacy laws, Dayanim said. It’s how social media companies such as Facebook and search engines such as Bing make money as well as a huge number of apps that scrape contact and location information from users. The provider might serve up general or targeted ads, generate a user base for marketing other services, or just use the e-mail service to build brand recognition.Īnd while Gmail may have popularized it, targeted ads based on user data has become the primary business model for many tech companies.

Gmail create account free free#

That information might seem mundane on the surface, but when extracted and organized, it’s incredibly valuable to marketers and advertisers.Īll the major e-mail providers, including Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo, benefit one way or another from offering a free service. When people send and receive messages using a free e-mail service, they are sharing details about their interests, who their connections are and what their finances look like. “Nothing in life is free, and as a result it is important for people to understand what value they bring to a free service of any kind,” said Behnam Dayanim, a partner at the law firm Paul Hastings LLP in Washington. What many consumers don’t consider is that companies such as Google can create a comprehensive profile of each user based on information from different products such as search, maps, e-mail and Google+, its social network. A conversation thread about meeting up at a spinning class, for example, might trigger an ad for a weight-loss product.ĭata gathered through e-mail scanning can also be used to create user profiles for future ad targeting. Gmail looks for keywords that identify topics of discussion based on things such as frequency and context, then matches the e-mail up with related ads. “The basic premise of Gmail is, we’ll give you a robust e-mail service and in exchange we want to display ads alongside our e-mail and we’re scanning your e-mail to decide what ads are most relevant,” said Eric Goldman, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law.