That's a very old article though. I'm quite sure this is no longer relevant. A friend of mine lost both his parents in Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 back in 2010 and I remember him telling me shortly afterwards he got very uncomfortable ads in Gmail about insurances and funeral services. In Dutch though, so it could be those keywords are not localized.
I did not know about this particular keyword sensitivity google mail: http://boingboing.net/2009/07/31/how-to-avoid-ads-in.html
Maybe everybody should add "I'm sorry for your loss of ads" to their email signature?