Microsoft may not be a privacy watchdog, but somebody inside the company definitely agrees with us that Gmail is creepy:
On July 20 during the MGX opening sessions, the Softies showed off their “Gmail Man” spoof, meant to spur the troops selling Office 365 against Google Apps, and specifically, Gmail. In the video, Gmail man riffles through mail to find keywords for serving up ads. The message: Google cares more about advertising revenues than privacy.
ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley couldn’t get Microsoft to confirm that the video is legit. But it seems to be. It would have more credibility coming from an organization like Consumer Watchdog than a Google rival (in this case, Microsoft, which has its own free, ad-supported email service – Hotmail).
The video itself is well-done, and manages to be funny and sobering at the same time.