My point is that if you don't like Gmail ads, you should investigate switching to something else. I feel like many people are uncomfortable with the ads but might feel locked in.

I actually don't care that Google is machine-reading email to serve ads (see http://www.maxmasnick.com/2012/02/12/gmail_paranoia/), but I do care about polluting the interface with ads that look like email for the same reason I don't like the new compose interface. Both make the interface worse, and email is bad enough as it is without bad UI.

Or just, you know, block the ads for a fraction of the effort.

With what? I _do_ care about running random plugins in my browser that update in the background. There's nothing stopping a malicious plugin from scraping stuff out of your email, and I feel like _that_ is a legitimate security concern!

>I _do_ care about running random plugins in my browser that update in the background.

Then turn that function off [1]. There's no more security threat from well-known browser plugins from Mozilla's site than well-known packages from your OS's apt repo. And both are open source.

[1] http://imgur.com/tivq9o8

There's nothing stopping a malicious webmail provider from scraping stuff out of your email, which, BTW, is the whole point of this post.

Fastmail isn't even under the control of your local firewall.

I don't really care either -- it's a free service that I'm able to access on pretty much any web-accessible device on the planet. Sometimes maintaining a service like that requires a way to pay the bills (FastMail is a paid service.)

Why would I be 'uncomfortable' with ads? Sometimes I feel like the issue with ads in Google/other services falls victim to the 'Nickelback Effect', where a few other very vocal people hate the subject at hand and it spreads virally to the point where people can't describe why they hated the subject in the first place.

Please be fair, people hate Nickelback because they make bad music.

i pay for my gmail (google apps) so I don't have any ads.

Is there anything (for example in the T&Cs) that stops Google from creeping ads to paying customers in the future?

I bet not.

Yes. Google Apps business model, and all Google Enterprise products for that matter, do not rely on ads for revenue. Google sells their business customers a product and generates revenue through those sales. The TOS protects your data.

Perhaps you didn't understand my point.

Google could easily decide to serve ads to paying customers, and it seems likely that they've left this option open to exercise later.

The fact that they apparently "do not rely on ads" is irrelevant.

There are plenty of existent services that have revenue from customers, but still serve ads (visible examples include: pay-TV, public transport)

They could, but they would have to change their TOS, which business customers would have to agree to. Most of these customers would not, thus destroying this portion of Google's business, so they would never do that. Ads are not a part of Google's Enterprise business model. I don't know how to state this more clearly.

So what are my options if I can't use a service that can potentially serve ads? None?

Yeah, this is the problem. I pay for Hulu but there is no way to get out the ads. Google is going for an interrupt-based ad model here so you should expect it in the paid version too.

If they take example from AT&T, they would be selling your information even if you are a paying customer, which might result in more targeted ads elsewhere...