Google is rolling out invasive email advertisements in new Gmail design

[onehandle]

Not those little text ads attached to emails, but unsolicited email ads that are nothing else but ads, based on what they have figured out about you through your Internet activity.

'These paid-for-placement adverts appear as new messages in amongst your other marketing emails. You can tell the difference between the ad mails and your regular marketing messages by a shaded background and the word 'ad' beneath the sender's name.

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/software/google-emails-you-adverts-in-new-gmail-design-50011778

Ditch Privacy Invasive Gmail. If you need a free email service, Yahoo is reviving millions of long dead emails addresses. Your name might be available:
https://wishlist.yahoo.com

[jbond56]

1. it took 2 seconds to turn that feature off.

[kentauros]

7. And that "feature" only seems to work if you keep those tabs.

I shut those off as soon as I figured out how. I abhor software second-guessing where I put email (or music, as with iTunes and the #1 reason why I won't use it.)

[unrepentant progress]

2. Nice bit of astroturfing for Yahoo

I really like the way you worked in the ad for Yahoo at the end, as if one corporate controlled email account were better than another. Good job, sir! You earned your 3 cents from the Mechanical Turk today!

[onehandle]

3. Whatever.

Google is holding millions of unused primary names in a dustbin. Yahoo took a bold step.

If Microsoft, Apple, AOL or any of the big players in free email do the same, I'll celebrate them as well.

Whatever slows the Borg who proclaim that 'they are the Internet.'

[unrepentant progress]

8. Newsflash: You can have almost any email address you could ever want

You don't have to use a giant corporation to handle your email. It's easy to do it yourself, and assuming you don't have massive needs, you can do it for around $3-$5/mo. If you have a reliable internet connection at home you can do it for even less -- around $1 a month, the price of a domain name. As a bonus, if you're pulling your email off your home computer, neither the NSA, FBI, or your local cop shop has any legal authority to it without a warrant.

I know, I know. It's not free. And that disadvantages a lot of people. If we were truly smart and compassionate as liberals we would be setting up community email providers in all our cities. But we liberals aren't that smart or compassionate. So until people like you or me get off our asses and actually take control back from the corporations, and protect ourselves from the security state, it's a bit idiotic to rail about the misdeeds of one corporation over another. Especially when those plaintive cries sound like ads.

[onehandle]

9. You don't have convince me. But most people don't perceive email as something you pay for.

I have my own domain email. Like you said, it's cheap.

[Dreamer Tatum]

5. The enemy of his enemy is his friend. nt

[Xyzse]

4. I'm not sure I like that idea of recycling certain names.

What is the definition of a "Long Dead Email Address?"

If it is only 2 years, I don't think I'd like that idea. It has to be at least 5 years, at a minimum 3.

Yahoo also has advertisements in my email, even if I paid for their premium account.

[Lizzie Poppet]

6. If you've been switched to the new multi-tabbed layout...

...these emails will appear in the one dedicated to "announcements" and other marketing emails. The only difference is they're not opt-in, like the other mails that appear in that tab. So not only is it easy to turn off, as another poster has mentioend, it's also easy to ignore, since that tab' s not defaulted to the front.

Can't say I much care, actually...