Trust and the illusion of non-commerciality are the foundations of Google's non-search services. Google must perform research to make sure that users don't find the ads distracting, probing or otherwise annoying. As a longtime and frequent user of Google's Gmail service, I was surprised to see a display ad next to my list of messages that reminded me of previous, lesser services. A quick Search on Google (of course) yielded a few results from January 2011 saying that the idea was under a beta test and would be rolled out gradually.
The ad was a vivid mix of blue and green and was selling flights to Nigeria right next to my list of messages and below convenience features like isolating an email to its own page, printing and links to add events to Google Calendar. The ad probably appeared because Google found references to African music in my emails, so I would consider it relevant albeit distracting.
Having emails scanned for keywords and other data is the price we pay for Google's services, but I also feel that these ads diminish significantly from the experience. Google benefits from our frequent use of Gmail and other services through the ability to show more ads based on time spent on the site, but if the experience feels exploitative or distracting to users, it will have the opposite effect. Google must take its Beta tests very seriously, especially from a data/user-journey point of view.
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