Could catastrophic signatures undermine Gmail’s business model?

I ran into this post on ‘How to avoid ads in Gmail’ and wondered if catastrophic e-mail signatures could ruin the Google Gmail revenue model (which is 100% advertizing based). Google does not want to mix the messages of its advertisers with catastrophic news in your inbox. So their advertising engine scan for “sensitive” words to make sure no ads are shown next to disturbing content. Just imagine a future popular habit where e-mail users add an “adblock footer” to their messages. Would Google change its courtesy policy or find way to distinguish real world accidents (by monitoring real time search results on news sites and social networks)? Think about ‘alarming’ footer statements in the line of:

• “Webmail Adblock footer: These words are designed to kill advertisements“
• “This footer cleans your interface from adverts: Remember that mail bomb you dropped in public. It made so many victims… they were scattered all over the office floor. Although that might also have happened after you Rickrolled my colleagues.”
•  P.S. Since too many people died during treatment, the World Health Organization decided to stop the distribution of the influenza A H1N1 swine flu vaccine and is now trying to make a vaccine to kill the bad joke pandemic that has arisen from the craze.

Joe McKay further observed:“If the message runs long Google turns the ads back on, however, if you add another “sensitive” word they go off again. After extensive testing I’ve discovered you need 1 catastrophic event or tragedy for every 167 words in the rest of the email. I usually toss in a couple extra for good measure. “

I look forward to receiving your catastrophic messages, feel free to add suggestions in the section below. My comment spam filter will enjoy labeling themÂ

Halleluia, may doom descent on my inbox.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 10:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.