[LINK] Google's harvesting algorithms

[Jim Birch]

I'm not sure that harvesting is such a big issue here, Google already
harvest data from your email and everything else.  If everyone used gmail
they would be perfectly happy with the status quo but a lot of the world
has moved on from email.

I think what Google are attempting here is to add social and intelligent
assistant capabilities to email so preserve and even claw back the user
base which is leaking to social systems and to smart systems.  Their
business is being your communication channel and I'd expect they would be
fairly agnostic about the format.  They are simply playing to their
strengths, growing out of their massive email user base, and leveraging
their big data and intelligent systems to make a better email for the
*typical* user.

Personally, I love unmediated or - self mediated - email but it is too much
for most people.  It is easy to have the signal swamped by the noise in
email unless you actively manage it.  I'm happy to put a little time and I
know how to.  Most people don't.  The simple systems of the early net are
becoming niche products just like the twin tub washing machine.  It was
cheap and reliable but new models do a lot more.  Intelligent systems have
benefits and costs.

The downside of using Inbox for me would be the additional junk that Google
would think I'm interested in.  I'm pretty selective about my information
sources and know where to go to find things that I want.  However, if they
can tune the system to be smart rather than intrusive I think will they
succeed with a lot of people.

It's fairly obvious to me that embedded intelligence will continue increase
over time.  We are clearly in the prototype era.  Hitting the sweet spot
that aids rather than hinders, balances automation with user control, and
doesn't subsume users needs to corporate objectives, in a system that
supports different types of users with different levels of digitality is a
Big Ask.

Jim