This is a point that I would argue. There is considerable information that would also be given to Google and the advertisers, even if only by inference, i.e. as was pointed out in the article the displaying of a particular ad would indicate content in your email related to that add. Additionally, if you were to click on that ad then they would be able to infer an even greater interest. Combine this with all of Googles other powerful data mining capabilities and they could put together a very nice profile of you.

However, it is a moot point in my opinion because they are disclosing these practices, so it is up to the end user to decide if this is something they wish to tolerate. Personally, I would not tolerate this, so I will not have a gmail account.

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