I have recently noticed that Gmail is showing me publicity; matching to the contents I have in my emails

Yes

Those advertisements are probably indexed from search terms you've entered into Google while logged into your Google account. Also, Google can track what you click in your Google searches and also from what website(s) you are coming when you go to Google.

As to reading your mail, I think that's highly unlikely, but Google is marketed as a free service, and they might reserve the right, in their TOS (Terms of Service), to anonymously capture data from your email (to/from addresses, subject lines, keywords) for the purposes of monetizing advertising towards you.

AbFab is right. Google and Yahoo (and probably MSN too) scan your emails for general content and then give you targeted ads. It's in some obscure paragraph in the terms of service that no one reads. But don't worry, no human is actually doing the reading (usually). It's just algorithms. Start typing in chat-speak or shorthand and you'll get other, unrelated ads.

Just so you know, it's not just email providers that do this. Many web pages you visit have trackers to see what you're clicking on so they can get a sense of what you like and might purchase. That's where you see the "customers who purchased/viewed this also purchased/viewed..." ads.

Kind of annoying, but I'm not on any sketchy sites so I don't care too much.

Now that's a relief

log out of your gmail account when you are not using it to prevent this.

also, others can read the email files as they are going down the wire, so if you have something very confidential, use an encrypted email account, which only works if the other party is also using the same encryption.

Google has been scanning your emails in gmail for targeted advertisements, almost from it's inception...But definitely log out of your email before surfing and better still, skip chrome

More than 20,000 government requests for information on google searches in the first half of 2012 to google (Predominantly by the US government, btw) for not only removal but also to have user data handed over...This includes searches, gmail content and, astonishingly, youtube vids criticizing government to be removed

George Orwell says hello

How long have you been using Gmail?

and log out of facebook as well, if you like your privacy

You can opt out. click on the username@gmail.com in top right part of screen, choose privacy -> advertising -> eventually you'll find it. otherwise

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/...erences/?hl=en

well I thought that was the primary purpose of gmail..

what I found interesting is that linkedin gave me some suggestions which it could have only taken from my gmail .

I switched to chrome from firefox because of the speed + saving one click for german->english translation ..
don't know if it is better to trust a not for profit company

Google also has to pass on this info to the police or security services if it is requested.

Also, in Switzerland, one cannot opt out of all of Google's privacy terms, as one can in the USA.

Google's not exactly a NFP company- they do exist to make profit. They're just not charging you... But they gotta make their money some way, so they cyber-pimp your information to the best cyber-john.

Gmail uses SSL by default when run in a web browser; nobody is reading your email apart from Google's targeted ad programs.

Logging will make no difference. What is happening google has intelligent search technigues that it applies to all email in much the same way as Amazon is able to work out what products you may be interested in based on other purchases and what similiar others have purchased.

It is nothing more then data analytics and matching across the entire email system.

expect it to increase and even tell you when you have forgotten to put an attachment based on you saying please refer to the attachment I included when you forgot to actually put one.

Their email is light years ahead of Outlook and Microsoft

ch

logging will make a difference, but not with regards to mail, I agree on that.

if you are logged in to gmail and do a gooogle search, google will log the search under your user name, and there is no way to opt out of that in Switzerland.

I've been using (observing) Collusion add-on for Ff (also available for Chrome, I believe) for a while - and it's starting to look like a map of the Solar system.
Not surprisingly, the biggest 'planets' are Google and FB.

If you don't pay for the product you are the product.

Ever noticed how, after looking at buying something, adverts for that product (or similar) will follow you around the internet

Google adsense at work...

So what, every time you hand over your cumulus or supercard or post things on facebook or use twitter, "they" are putting together a profile of you.

You don't HAVE to use any of these products.

Which is hillarious to me, btw, because I JUST bought the product, so why the frack do I need another right now?