[mreerm]

this is the first i had heard of this...gmail reading the contents of a message and acting on the contents it read. might not be news to some, but was news to me. interesting......

[coloradan]

“Didn’t you mean to write: ‘Great Job, Obama!’? Because that isn’t what you wrote.”

[Sherman Logan]

Lots of email programs do this.

[ruiner]

You do know that gmail scans every word you type, enters it into a database and then sells advertising space to companies that target you specifically, don’t you?

If you send an email to a friend consoling them on a medical issue you will probably start to see Dr. adverts on the right side of your browser when in google for instance.

[GregNH]

I would be interested to find out if the same result happened on an encrypted email.

[¢ommon ¢ents]

That's a common behavior of email programs. Mozilla Thunderbird has done that since at least version 3.0 (maybe 2.x, I'm not sure).

It's not particularly evil. It's even possible to handle that in Javascript and put that message up before any data is sent to Gmail/Google. If the popup comes up without any significant delay with "contacting gmail.com" in your status bar, then it's your computer that is scanning the content and putting up the dialog.

[trebb]

If true - it would actually be a good thing. I can't tell you how many times I intended to send an attachment, but got so engrossed in the wording that I neglected to attach it.

Let's face it, once you send an email, privacy is not an expected consideration with today's technologies and the increased storage capacity. If I'm worried about what I'm sending being seen by others, I tend to not send it.

[RobertClark]

Thunderbird has done this for quite a while.

[lowbridge]

instead of sending the message, gmail will pop up a window saying: 'Do you mean to attach files? You wrote "see attachment" in your message, but there are no files attached. Send anyway?'

That is strange. When I try to send an email without an attachment after I've signified that I want to send an attachment, the pop up message to me reads: "Chuck Norris will come to your house and kick your ass for wasting our time"

[SuzyQue]

Just for whoever cares, Microsoft Outlook didn’t do it. Sent the email as i wrote it with no “see attached” attachment.

[capecodder]

Thunderbird gives a reminder.

[Mycroft Holmes]

If you are not using encryption your email is the equivalent of a post card; anybody on any machine it travels through can read your missive. That your mail client reads your mail is hardly surprising.