Gmail's "Intelligent" advert suggestions...

I'm sure many of us have heard, or heard concerns, about Google scanning mail in order to target adverts.

Over the last few days, I've seen evidence that something about this mechanism is getting weirder / wilder / whackier.

This morning, alongside an email about travel arrangements for a croquet tournament in Glasgow, it offered me an advert for kittens for sale. Maybe it perceived a potential to build on an interest in chasing balls around.

A couple of days before that, at the top of my "in box" listing, it offered me a curious cardboard tube that allows women to wee standing up. Now, I can see this is the sort of thing that any woman might be interested in. But why tell me? Was I being prompted to consider it as an unusual Christmas present? Or given that one cannot engage with a health-conscious, independent modern woman by whipping out a cigarette lighter or offering a handkerchief, is this the kind of accessory every well-prepared gentleman about town ought to carry? Or is it just that Google doesn't think email content analysis is up to discerning the recipient's sex?

Weirdest of all, though, was when it showed me an advert for Toop Exhumation Services, along side emails about an HCI conference. Not once, but twice. Now, OK, the second one was an email acknowledging by attempt to unsubscribe from their mailing list, which I suppose has a vague sense of "ending" about it. But basically, I thought, if that's the state of the art of intelligent advert selection based on scanning my email...

But then I went on to think about appropriate cues for presenting an advert like that, I began to see the incident as a symptom of what is deeply wrong with our modern "e-mediated" lives.

You see, I don't believe there is a sensible answer to the question "what kind of email content would suggest an interest in an exhumation company?"

And because of that, I don't understand is why an exhumation company is advertising on Google at all.

OK, I confess I have only a rough idea what an "exhumation company" does, and I'm sure there are lots of subtle details that could distinguish one company from another. But why do they advertise to the public?

I can see that from time to time the Police, or the Coroner's office, will need companies to do exhumations. But surely there can't be more than maybe 100 people in the whole of Britain who are actively involved in arranging them. Can there? So exhumations is a market dominated by specialist buyers. And it is probably not a market that is hugely price sensitive --- I suspect that official bodies will pay "whatever it costs" to get the job done properly and sensitvely.

But I also guess they have some kind of tendering process and approved supplier lists and what not.

So why are these people spending money on advertising to the general public?

They are surely not expecting impulse buyers: "Your mail mentioning Aunt Agnes makes me realise how much I've missed her. It's a shame we haven't got more photos of her. Oh! Here! I know..."

I assume this does not happen.

Exhumation service is not obviously a business that has much scope for increasing its overall market size: it doesn't rank high on many people's list of "discretionary expenditure".

So are they just building general "brand awareness"? When the police come to you and say "new evidence suggests your father was murdered, and we're going to have to examine his body", you won't just settle for any exhumation company! Oh no! You know who you want...

So are they really trying to ensure that "everyone in Britain" knows their name, just in case they are ever involved in an exhumation? Or are they trying to reach a few dozen professional commissioners-of-exhumations by advertising to "everyone in Britain".

Neither of these would be a sensible basis for a conventional advertising campaign: the costs involved would render it completely un-economic. But on-line, it seems, the costs are so low that there is no obstacle. Anyone can afford to clamour for our attention, no matter how in-efficiently. And we're left to live our lives amid the resulting cacophony.

The culture that put adverts on the back of bus tickets is now scribbling in the margins of our mail.

It's enough to make you want to buy a cat! Oh... what's that written on its collar?