14 DAY TRIAL // According to a recent survey conducted by GMX and cited by TMC Net, 40% of Britons are not aware of the fact that the ads displayed along with their electronic mail messages are related to the content of these. The same percentage of people, although not necessarily made up by the same persons, said they were concerned with this policy. Indeed, the feeling that one’s actions, and especially those related to one of the most personal Internet services, such as the email is, are being constantly tracked, cannot be too comfortable.
Only 18% of respondents said that this practice that their email providers employ, namely, that of scanning their emails in order to display the most persuasive ads, is not intrusive. A poor 2% claimed that personalized ads served by email clients are in fact useful, helping people decide faster and easier on the products they're planning to purchase.
Men proved to be more interested in the matter, as a larger percentage, as compared with women, claimed that personalized advertising content is bothering. Overall, 33% of the British users who took part in the survey said that users should be allowed to opt-out the system, which would allow them to choose not to be monitored by their email client.
“It is understandable that many Britons are wary about their private emails being scanned for advertising reasons. It is certainly important that every user is at least informed if this is done by their email service. [..] Most users only realize that their personal emails are being used in this way after noticing strangely optimized ads around their Inbox. British consumers should bear in mind that they have a choice of free email services that don't do this. If they are uncomfortable with the practice, they should vote with their feet.” says Eva Heil, managing director at GMX.
As most of you probably know, GMX is a free email service whose popularity level cannot hold a candle to that of the products offered by the giants Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft. The results of the study, besides offering an interesting view on what Britons know and think about email ads, also aim at convincing users of the great alternatives and advantages the GMX client brings.