Gmail takes information from inside attachments?

[Borkpaladin]

This could be super well known, this could be completely irrelevant, but does gmail store information about you by searching inside email attachments?

 

Recently, I was searching for flights and google brought up a whole bunch of flight information from a few pdf flight itineraries I'd been sent a while ago, no actual information in the email, just the attachments.

The only information I could find about this was a few posts from 2012 about users being able to search for information inside attachments in google.

 

Does anyone find this scary?

Or is this just a super common feature?

[mikat]

This could be super well known, this could be completely irrelevant, but does gmail store information about you by searching inside email attachments?

 

Recently, I was searching for flights and google brought up a whole bunch of flight information from a few pdf flight itineraries I'd been sent a while ago, no actual information in the email, just the attachments.

The only information I could find about this was a few posts from 2012 about users being able to search for information inside attachments in google.

 

Does anyone find this scary?

Or is this just a super common feature?

google spies on everyone in every way they can. so yes it is scary and no we cant do anything. ;( exept change.org, that might help

[slightlyjaded]

This could be super well known, this could be completely irrelevant, but does gmail store information about you by searching inside email attachments?

 

Recently, I was searching for flights and google brought up a whole bunch of flight information from a few pdf flight itineraries I'd been sent a while ago, no actual information in the email, just the attachments.

The only information I could find about this was a few posts from 2012 about users being able to search for information inside attachments in google.

 

Does anyone find this scary?

Or is this just a super common feature?

I'm not sure if it was from the attachments, but I do know that google does store search information within an anonymous numbered account linked to your IP address. If you used google to do research before your booking that is probably where the information is coming from.

 

Rest assured that unless they have a court order google cannot physically link the data and look at it directly......And I've got a lovely bridge I'd like to sell you if you believe that.

[Borkpaladin]

I'm not sure if it was from the attachments, but I do know that google does store search information within an anonymous numbered account linked to your IP address. If you used google to do research before your booking that is probably where the information is coming from.

 

Rest assured that unless they have a court order google cannot physically link the data and look at it directly......And I've got a lovely bridge I'd like to sell you if you believe that.

 

I actually physically booked the flights at a flight centre thing and they emailed the itinerary to me, and it had extremely specific information (flight number, booking reference, etc) that could only have been from the pdf.

[Nexxus]

google spies on everyone in every way they can. so yes it is scary and no we cant do anything. ;( exept change.org, that might help

Hold on to that dream, that shit wont change anything ever.

[slightlyjaded]

I actually physically booked the flights at a flight centre thing and they emailed the itinerary to me, and it had extremely specific information (flight number, booking reference, etc) that could only have been from the pdf.

Well this just goes to show that big data isn't quite as big as we might like.

[TylerLovekeeper]

google knows all

[skylane]

No it's not scary. What's the difference between searchability in emails and in attachments? If you needs are more private or confidential 1) don't use a public email service like gmail and 2) encrypt the file

[Scia]

It's called scraping. They basically scan your mails to index them in order for you to be able to search them. Wouldn't work otherwise ^^