Last week I was trading e-mails with my daughter about a marathon we were thinking about running in Nashville this spring. I was using my Gmail account. Gmail is by far the best “free” Web-based e-mail service around. It is easy to use, reliable, and has just the right amount of bells and whistles. I have been using Gmail instead of my own server-based mail program for some time. I spend a lot of time online and have become pretty oblivious to online advertising. If a site has an advertisement that takes over the browser window or starts crawling across my desktop, I “blacklist” that site. Regular banners and medallions and rectangles I just ignore–or at least I thought I did.

Anyway, I was reading our e-mail chain and happened to glance to the right of the text message and see four nicely designed little medallion-size text ads. One was about marathon training, one about an online running journal, one about lodging in Nashville . . . you get the picture. Google scanned my e-mail for keywords and then returned some sponsored links based on those keywords. I don't know why this surprised me. We are conditioned to expect paid advertisements returned when we do online searches. I just hadn't made the mental adjustment to expect the same for e-mail.

That means all my Gmail is being scanned and matched to a keyword list, and that list is matched to a paid advertiser. Google provides ready links to explain how the sponsored links work with assurances it doesn't allow just any link to show up. All ads must be considered family safe as well as meet other criteria. There also is a link to the Google privacy policy and an assurance “no humans will read the content of your e-mail in order to target such advertisements or related information.” You may notice the disclaimer does not say no humans ever will read your e-mail. Personally I am fine with that. I am not overly concerned with my privacy, and I certainly am capable of using various encryption schemes if I need to. I long ago gave up the notion anyone was afforded privacy on the Internet. Just as long ago I gave up any notion of privacy during phone conversations.