MisterWebNet

So gmail has got itself a brand spanking new priority inbox. Google promises us that aside from your regular inbox, this one will hold emails that are 'priority'. They calculate this based on emails you read, emails you mark as important and emails you reply to. The theory being, the more you use it, the better it should become at sifting through your mail.

Well that's just great.

But lets look at what's really happening. Beneath the gimicky promo video (posted below), the process means Google will have to go through you're mail IN DETAIL. Emails are currently scanned for well known 'spam' traits by Google's spam filter. This means emails with the words 'get hard now', 'viagra cheap', 'weight loss in 2 weeks!!' and the infamous 'My late husband left me $10,000,000" get thrown into junk.

But how would Google know an email is 'priority'? It would have to maintain a database of the emails you read, emails you reply to, emails you de-prioritise, what emails you read before others, known contacts and past contacts. Which might all sound perfectly reasonable.

But what if you read Company A's marketing email before Company B's email? Is Google building up a knowledge base of what marketing emails work best? What interests you? Not only do they already know what sites you visit, what you search for, whether you are likely to have the cold flu or not, it now knows what spikes your interest in emails. Add to that the obvious stuff like your friends, who you communicate with, which guys send you funny emails and which lovers send you raunchy ones and Google has a pretty detailed picture of who you are.

Facebook will be envious. It's positioning itself as the company that will be able to mine your data and open it up to companies to target you. Companies will be able to use your data to personalise the sites you visit. For example, if you were searching for 'Shakira' on facebook last week, you visit  a music store this week and in the top right corner might be displayed a very nifty 'buy shakira albumn' advertisement - all courtesy of Facebook.

Now Google is getting in on the scene. Rumors of something big underfoot at Google are widespread - something that will see a new social networking site launched, challenging Facebook for top dog status. How handy that Google will also be able to promote itself to marketers and companies as having your most intimate details available for data mining.