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  3. In 2004 Google unveiled Gmail: a powerful e-mail account with a gigabyte of storage. That was 500 times what Hotmail was offerin

In 2004 Google unveiled Gmail: a powerful e-mail account with a gigabyte of storage. That was 500 times what Hotmail was offerin

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问题     In 2004 Google unveiled Gmail: a powerful e-mail account with a gigabyte of storage. That was 500 times what Hotmail was offering—so much storage, the original Gmail didn’t even offer a delete button— and all for free. But not everyone rejoiced. Gmail paid for all of this goodness by displaying small text ads, off to the right of each incoming message, relevant to its contents. Privacy advocates went ballistic. It didn’t seem to matter to them that a software algorithm—not a human being -was scanning your messages for keywords. The Electronic Privacy Information Center called for Gmail to be shut down, and a California state senator proposed a bill that would make it illegal to scan the contents of incoming e-mail.
    To many people, it seems that the more time we spend online, the more often we are offered convenience in exchange for our privacy. Grocery stores’ affinity cards give us discounts—but let them track what we are buying and eating. Amazon, com greets us by name and remembers what we have bought. Facebook has amassed the largest database of personal information in human history(more than half a billion people).
    Of course, convenience-for-privacy deals have been going on for years. Credit cards leave a trail. Phones give phone company employees a record of who you’ve been calling. It’s nice to have a house to live in but buying one leaves a permanent record of your whereabouts.
    There are some good reasons to protect certain aspects of our privacy, of course. We would never want our medical or financial details to keep us from getting a job—or a date. We might not want our voting patterns made public. But beyond those obvious exceptions, privacy fears have always been more of an emotional reaction than a rational one.(Does anyone really care what groceries you buy? Does it matter if they do?)And in the online world, much of it is simply fear of the unknown, of what’s new.
    In time, as the unknown becomes familiar, each new wave of online-privacy terror seems to fade a-way. Nobody bats an eye over Gmail’s ad-scanning feature anymore. Even middle-agers and grandparents are signing up for Facebook. The younger generation can’t even comprehend why their elders worry about privacy. Indeed, the entire appeal of the new age of online services is to broadcast personal information. On purpose. Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places even publicize your current location, so that your friends can track your movements(and, of course, join you).
    If you were among those who thought that Google overstepped privacy lines with Gmail, you must be positively freaked about these developments. But at least some aspects of your privacy have been gone for years. The fear you feel may be real, but the chances of someone actually looking up the boring details of your life are reassuringly small. As with fear of flying, shark attacks or lightning, your gut may not be getting realistic data from your brain.
We learn from Para. 1 that Google’s Gmail provoked -suspicion mainly for______.
选项 A、its claimed storing capacity
B、its lack of innovation
C、its message-scanning function
D、its free services
答案C
解析 首段前两句指出：2004年谷歌公司推出了存储功能强大的Gmail。第三至六句指出，并非所有人都对此感到兴奋，隐私倡导者对Gmail持抵制态度，电子隐私信息中心甚至呼吁关闭Gmail。他们反对的原因是：Gmail会在每份邮件旁边显示与该邮件内容相关的文字广告，而这是Gmail非法扫描用户邮件信息的结果。[C]选项符合文义。
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