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Is that legal to replace the ads? I would think it is against the TOS of the site.


Users chose to do it to themselves. So presumably its just as legal as adblock


Yes they do it but I just question how viable a company is that relies on blocking ads to display their data.


If it drives more people to the online version of Gmail then that's still a win for Gmail in some sense (if not monetarily). I currently use Gmail via IMAP so never see any ads but Rapportive could tempt me back online.


Yep, especially if it gives them a lot of useful information about you to target ads to you in the rest of the googleverse.


Can't see it being a good thing when Google are deciding what company to buy though - would anyone buy adblock?

I absolutely hate plugins/companies that just routinely cover up other peoples advertising. It's not a smart move IMHO.


would anyone buy adblock?

Makes even more sense to buy and kill a service hurting you.


We believe the context we provide is a much more valuable use of the limited sidebar space than the ads it replaces; and we think that adds value to the platform, both for Google and for its users.

We're not interested in cheating Google out of their ad revenue, although we suspect the Gmail ads aren't making that much revenue anyway.

Update: I should also add that we have a good relationship with Google, and we were a launch partner for their contextual gadgets platform: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/05/putting-email-i...


"although we suspect the Gmail ads aren't making that much revenue anyway."

If that were true, I'm pretty sure Google would have either 'fixed it' so that they do make revenue, or removed them.

Personally, I'd expect those ads on GMail certainly make a few million.




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