Microsoft slams Google for email snooping to sell ads
Microsoft is accusing Google of trawling through peoples’ emails to sell targeted advertising through a nationwide campaign to promote its “private” and rival Outlook service.
Video:
Microsoft Outlook advert
The “Keep You Email Private” drive pushes users to a microsite created to demonstrate how the search giant is scanning users’ emails in search of keywords to target advertising. It features a video (see above) depicting how Google’s bots scan content to serve relevant ads as well as a petition calling for the company to stop.
The campaign uses two ads, one in Pig Latin and another in English, to compare how users send emails without them being scanned for ads. It reads: “Keep calm and Keep your email private”, before claiming, “Google goes through every word of your emails to sell ads. But Outlook.com doesn’t”.
Microsoft is banking on rising concerns about digital privacy in to attract users to its own email service.
Microsoft’s attack on Google comes after the business recently revealed it was adopting a “humble” approach to challenging the latter’s dominance of the search market.
