this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2025
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165
Google To Subscribe To Your Emails To Find Content For Your Search Listings. (www.seroundtable.com)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
39 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Google sent out a notification that it will automatically opt you into using content from your email campaigns to help Google know what to show in Google Search, Shopping, and Maps. It will look for content around "new arrivals, sales or ongoing promotions, social media profiles, and others," Google said.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

I think people are confused, this has nothing to do with gmail as far as I can tell.

Google is going to websites and subscribing itself to their newsletters. This is not related to consumers.

It's still good to move away from gmail and google in general, just pointing out that it's not scanning your gmail inbox or something like that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

Thank you, I definitely looked at this sideways for a second until I realized what they meant and you confirmed my thoughts. Yeah I'm happy that my main email is now Proton, and I'm slowly moving accounts over.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

Anyone got a any opinions (or a link to a review) of the different options? Proton and tuta come up, are there others worth considering?

I understand that I'll probably need to pay (otherwise I'm the product) and encryption / security is good, but the thing that keeps with Gmail (apart from inertia) is that it feels quick and easy to use. My only real experience of non Gmail sites over the last two decades have been terrible but mandatory work webmail systems that are slow, clunky and look a decade out of date. Or Hotmail, which sucks for a variety of reasons.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Startmail (from the Startpage folks) has been fine for me. You pay for it, you can put your domain on it, you can do alias addresses, works with any IMAP client since it's just IMAP ran by a (so far) competent company. Their web ui is fine, but ive only used it for initial setup. Besides Thunderbird on mobile I use Snappymail within Nextcloud and this works just fine as well. All I can say is it does what it says on the tin.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

My only real experience of non Gmail sites over the last two decades have been terrible but mandatory work webmail systems that are slow, clunky and look a decade out of date.

Uh same, Outlook Web's search function sucks so much compared to Gmail's 😫

So basically just give me Gmail's UX without the corporation pls. Do any of the competitors have similar search, filtering and tagging behaviour?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Mailspring desktop client has a pretty neat UI imo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Don't use webmail then? There are enough E-Mail tools on every OS.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

Using email clients is fine on my primary devices, but I often have to use email on other people's computers. I don't really want to go back to carrying a usb of portable apps again. And some public computers have usb drive access disabled, understandably.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Phone?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

but I often have to use email on other people's computers

why?

public computers have usb drive access disabled

But why would you ever want to log in to your private e-mail on a public computer?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

In general, encryption causes slow search which makes everything feel clunky. For this reason, I opted for a non-encrypted provider.

I now personally use Posteo since they have a strong privacy policy, but a more complete and user-friendly option might be Infomaniak. They offer free email, or a suite including 1TB cloud storage for €20 per year. They’re hosting in Switzerland.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 19 hours ago

and they'll pay you for helping them out with their product right???

[–] [email protected] 7 points 18 hours ago

I finally just blew up my gmail the other week and not a moment to soon as it seems. Much happier with my new swiss provider.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Me, in 2005: Why would anyone use a service that scans your personal email for things to sell you?

Me 20 years later: . . so. . . tired

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Most of us were fucking shitty teenagers when this shit was going down.. I literally had nothing to hide haha

Then Google photos uploaded all my pictures into the cloud around 2015... It finally hit me the we are dealing with rapist culture in the tech companies

Deny the parasite profit and engagement

These people are your enemies, never forget

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

rapist culture

Louis Rossmann fan?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I have been guilty of enjoying his spazzing...

[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Just to clarify, “you” in this case refers to companies and marketers, not consumers. Looks like this news website is for marketers/SEO industry people.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So this is another headline designed to get a kneejerk reaction outta people.

Basically if I'm a store that sends out a weekly email to subscribers, Google will "read" that email for SEO purposes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

it's the automatically opting in people have a problem with

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

100% agree. Should be opt-in per email.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

But how do they know which email that might be? Do they even know which of my accounts are for business or personal use? If I send an email from my business email to a bunch of friends and relatives to plan a party, will Google assume those are subscribers and pull my party-planning content from my email and put that info... somewhere... on my business page? I don't want them reading any of my emails, ever.

The email from Google was laughable in that it contained almost no info on how this process is supposed to work. All it means to me is that I don't have control over my own content. This should have been opt-in instead of opt-out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

This has nothing to do with gmail or the emails you send/receive.

The process is googles search bot will subscribe google to marketing newsletters available on websites, it's outlined in the linked post: "Google will either subscribe to your emails automatically or you can add [email protected] to your email lists and that will do it."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 23 hours ago

I assume its more of it subscribes to your newsletter same as a user would, so when you send out the newsletter to "group 1", the google thing is also on that mailing list.

And yes, should absolutely be opt-in, per mailing list, per email.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

Yeah, because they’ve been doing this to us plebs for years now.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm so glad I made the choice to move away from Gmail and Google search a few years ago.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (4 children)

i want to get away from gmail but I can't find a replacement that doesn't cost a service fee to be reliable.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you won't pay cash, then you have to pay data.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

ahhh. so I guess I just can't use email anymore. got it!

edit: /s in case it was not obvious.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago

Would you provide a free mail service?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

In general, no, you will not be provided services at no cost. If you want to go back to the post office, they will require you to buy stamps.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Tuta has a free tier.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

As does Proton.

I went with Tuta though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

That's how the world works unfortunately, someone has to pay for it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Look into infomaniak (yes, I know, silly name), but its a serious service and very up to par with Google Suite.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

thank you. i feel like i've seen their name around but I wasn't quite sure what they were about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I would ask "was it this? https://beehaw.org/comment/4363681 "

because I found it in my notes by its website preview from when I saved it, but it seems someone deleted something and lemmy shit the bed again, and you dont have have a normal descriptive link like reddit does but only an internal database ID that does not refer to anything anymore....

the post title was "is this normal for domain name registrars to do.", and something that infomaniak did

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

I would ask "was it this? https://beehaw.org/comment/4363681

I have this userscript that changes all Lemmy links to my home instance, so that comment still shows up here: https://lemmy.world/comment/15087567

Copying the content for further backup:

[email protected]

Since your goal is “to move to a European registrar” Porkbun is not for you.

https://hosting-checker.net/websites/porkbun.com “Webserver Amazon”

Here are some additional options. https://european-alternatives.eu/category/domain-name-registrar

https://1984.hosting/product/hosting/

I suggest you reach out to Infomaniak support and ask for an alternative method which is less invasive.

https://www.infomaniak.com/en/help

Try to make Infomaniak a better experience for everyone. Infomaniak claims to be “The Ethical Cloud” but they did not start business as a privacy company and have been learning over time. Help to teach them with one more customer story. Let us know what happens.

If no luck with Infomaniak helping, you can try to contact a different registrar before signing up to confirm they will accept your domain type and ask them what the process will be. Hold them accountable to whatever process they describe if you choose them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

wow thanks! that's a long script, how do you know the new numeric ID that corresponds to the same content on the home instance?