Contextual can be creepy

I love gmail and all things Google. But I read something on Problogger that sent shivers through me timbers, even though I pretty much knew it already. It's about how Google crawls your emails and chats so that they can get a better idea of how to rate your blog. For me, the article stuck out not so much for the blogging component so much as how they serve up contextual ads.

"Is Google Reading Your Mail?!

Read this carefully:

[0044] References to the blog document by other sources may be a positive indication of the quality of the blog document. For example, content of emails or chat transcripts can contain URLs of blog documents. Email or chat discussions that include references to the blog document is a positive indicator of the quality of the blog document.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?! Google has a massively popular hosted email service - GMail. They also have Google Talk, a chat service. You probably knew that. But did you know Google has intentions of crawling the content of your GMail emails and Google Talk chat sessions?! Now, I don’t know if they actually do that or not, and I haven’t gone hunting thru their terms of service seeking clarity, but their stated aim is clear: to find URLs in two key forms of personal online communications (email and chats), and to use these discoveries to further rank blogs and blog posts.

I've long assumed that they crawl emails and chats just from the ads that crop up in the transcripts. For example, a coworker who does bellydancing on the side mentions a gig she did over the weekend in our chat, and no surprise, all these contextual ads about bellydancing spring up.

What creeps me out is when my chat partner and I make no mention of a particular topic in our chat, and contextual ads STILL give me information I know to be relevant to the other person, even though that person hasn't chosen to share that info with me directly.

For example, through someone's del.icio.us bookmarks, I know she's depressed. We chat and we make no mention of that. But in the sidebar I see all these ads promoting HowToBeHappy.com.

Or when somebody I know is dating a firefighter, and she makes no mention of it in her chats. However, then I see in the ads all these links to places like fightingfirewithfire.com. I'm thinking they're pulling that info from her other chats. With say, for example, the firefighter.

A little spooky, don't you think?

I personally don't have a lot to hide, so I don't really care about it for myself. But it really is a good reminder how transparent all our online doings can be to the rest of the world.

Sometimes they're funny, too. What really got me recently is when I was chatting a fair amount with a man I liked who things didn't pan out with. When the flame was dying down, a quote kept springing up over and over again:

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.
Eric Hoffer

Forget reading tarot cards. Just look at your darned chat transcripts if you want to know your future.