You're spreading conspiracy theories. There is no way Google is listening to your phone calls and using the information for ads.
Emails were sacred back then and it took Google and long and slow creep to face little backlash when they started reading our emails. I see no reason why listening devices will be any different.
If the information is available and valuable to Google (and me talking to my spouse about buying a new computer next week sure is!) they will slowly walk towards getting it. The steps are pretty clear:
1. Have listening device which only listens to "OK Google" mass adopted
2. Increase capabilities for EASILY defensible safety reasons, listening to alarms, then screams, then personal threats, etc
3. Face backlash over 2. and easily defend it because who wouldn't want to save children from burning buildings etc.
4. Public begins to paint privacy minded folks as crazies for wanting to burn children alive.
5. Repeat 2 through 4 a few times.
6. Ease into that ad listening because everyone either thinks you do it already or they just don't care because they're exhausted hearing people raise alarms for 2.
I'm not saying this is a nefarious management plan to ease into surveillance either. Google's MO is put money and time into making a feature useful then eventually monetize it. Making "OK Google" listening devices useful in ways the public finds acceptable is where they're at now. Eventually they will have paved the way for it to be profitable and palatable for the public when it's always listening to us.
* Google changed this policy right around Cambridge Anlytica time
Google explicitly stated their would read your emails to show ads next to them at launch. This was a surprise to nobody.
> and only stopped
It never stopped reading mail. How do you think searching your inbox or filtering spam work?
In light of this, the rest of your post is pure conspiracy theory nonsense. Google was upfront about the reasons for reading your mail at the beginning. Why should any of that change?
That does hurt my premise but I think it overall still holds:
- Google did stop reading email for ads in 2017 as I said in an other post[1].
- Google does have a policy of innovate then monetize later. That was explicitly what they did with Google Maps
- GMail was a good (but bit wrong as I brought up!) example of creeping surveillance, but Chrome provides a good example as well[2]. Google sells ads, it's products will be optimized to gather information for it.
[1] https://variety.com/2017/digital/news/google-gmail-ads-email...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/google-chrome-privacy/google...
Obviously some are more useful to the user than others but they're all computer programs taking your data, running some code and returning a response. There is no human in the loop "reading" things
Then I'll wait 5 minutes or so, and step outside, and there will be a small note taped to my door. Last time it said, "You left them in the car --a friend"
"Engineer-Private Paul Klee Misplaces an Airplane Between Milbertshofen and Cambrai, March 1916", Donald Barthelme
They really weren't up front about it, they might have just not been hiding it very hard.
Part of the solution to the tech vs. privacy problems could be forcing companies to be actually up front about their business models. After all, it's not wrong for an individual to give up their data, after being informed about what is requested and what will be done with it. The wrong behavior is having a business model that depends on most customers not being aware their data is being mined and used against them.
To my mind, the biggest privacy violator that doesn't admit it's privacy violations right now is Apple. Even as a non-Apple user, I have my WiFi location slurped up by Apple, and they don't give me any way to opt out. People who use Apple devices have it far worse.
It was the answer to the main question everyone had, how are they providing 1GB (huge at the time) inbox space for FREE? Because they were serving relevant ads against your mail. It was in no way a secret.
What I remember are many products released around that time by Google, et al that were sold to us as: we're making gobs of money off of our core offering (e.g. search + little text-based ads), that we can afford to all this other stuff for the benefit of humanity. So much was sold as "making the world a better place". The other sales pitch we got amounted to, "don't worry about it, we'll monetize later."
Nobody was up-front in those days. Which is why not a month has gone by where ToS or Privacy Policy changes need another click to accept to keep using. The frog was certainly slow-boiled.
Here's one comment on slashdot: [0].
I have to laugh at this one [1]. It almost seems reversed these days (not quite, but kinda)
I'll see if I can dig up any press releases or official Google communications about it, but with linkrot what it is, it may take a while. (EDIT: Here's Google's privacy policy when Gmail was released [2])
[0] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105335&cid=8965115
[1] https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105335&cid=8965194
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20040404134002/http://gmail.goog...
The value proposition has changed but not in the way that was feared at the time. We're certainly inundated with ads to a greater degree than it was at the time. They never turned around and charged for it but they certainly require a lot more personal information to have an account these days.
There was so much hate for Microsoft but it was wishful thinking that Google would turn out differently.
But it was widely known and discussed at the time, and included in their policy on day one[0]. It was the plan to make 1GB work. It was their answer when people asked, skeptically, how they could make money giving away such unfathomable storage "for free".
And, as far as privacy policies go, that document is well organized and addresses the scanning in the very first section.
You don't have to trust my memory of this, but their above-board handling of keyword scanning in emails is not an example that illustrates how they will be evil with surreptitious voice recording on their other products.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20040404134002/http://gmail.goog...