DM News: Google Aims to Answer Privacy 'Misconceptions' Over Gmail

Google in its "a few words about privacy and Gmail" page added a note in an effort to calm fears about Gmail privacy concerns and clear up misconceived rumors that have been spreading around the web. It told users that Google does not keep emails after users delete them and only retains backup files to the degree that other email providers do. Going beyond other free email providers, Google said it would make "reasonable efforts" to remove deleted mails from its system.

The note is unlikely to have much of an effect on the current privacy imbroglio, as the groups pushing for stricter privacy measures have been focusing on the broader issues, rather than just Gmail. Other free email providers have used some of the same features groups used as evidence against Gmail, like email search functions (Yahoo) and targeting ads via message content (Microsoft).

A MarketingVOX test on May 1 of the three major free email providers showed that in four categories of message content sent in at least seven iterations each, Hotmail targeted ads to the message content for the first display of the image, so long as a low frequency cap was not surpassed. A repeat of the test on May 8 showed that the email giant was not at that time targeting ads to message content.