Google is Stalking Me

I’ll start this blog off with one of the weirdest forms of digital promotion.  It’s certainly the one that make me feel the most uncomfortable.

Gmail is Google’s mail client and is a pretty slick piece of software at that, but I can’t help but feel like somebody at Google has been going through my email every time I log on.  Why?  Because Google’s Adsense displays adds that correspond with keywords in the email.

An example.  I had written an email to a tattoo artist and he wrote me back.  I used the word tattoo a few times in the email.  When I read his reply, text ads along the sidebar were displaying ads for online tattoo sites and tattoo parlors.

Creepy, yes?  Wait, you say, of course you got ads because you sent it to a business email, right?  No, Google does this with every email.  I could send my mom an email about taking out the trash and I bet a Waste Management ad would pop up.

I think this is a case of digital promotion going too far.  Google doesn’t need to analyze my email for keywords.  They should just throw up random ads.  I don’t care if they make less money.  My privacy is more important.