Privacy Complaint Against Google's GMail Service

CRCates writes "Privacy groups in the UK have filed a complaint against Google over its new Gmail service. Privacy groups said they were concerned about Google's ability to link a user's personal details, supplied in the Gmail registration process, to Web-surfing behaviour through the use of a single cookie for its search and mail services. "

Comments

How can they do this?

[Pingular]

It hasn't even been launched yet, it's in beta. I'd imagine the people in this beta have signed some kind of agreement where they say they cannot do anything if they are adversly affected by Gmail, so what's the problem? Of course it's a different matter when it's launched to the public.

Re:How can they do this?

[darien]

Presumably this group wants Google to get it right before it's released to the public! Which seems fair enough to me. Isn't that what being in beta is for?

Re:How can they do this?

[Oriumpor]

[quoteblock]It hasn't even been launched yet, it's in beta. I'd imagine the people in this beta have signed some kind of agreement where they say they cannot do anything if they are adversly affected by Gmail, so what's the problem? Of course it's a different matter when it's launched to the public.[/quoteblock]

Or more like they signed an agreement that made sure they agreed to complete and total lack of anonymity and privacy.

Re:How can they do this?

[Oriumpor]

[quoteblock 503 service unavailable.][/bad joke]

Re:How can they do this?

[orthogonal]

I'd imagine the people in this beta have signed some kind of agreement where they say they cannot do anything if they are adversly affected by Gmail, so what's the problem?

The problem is those pesky "inalienable" (or "unalienable" as one source writes it) rights: inalienable simply means that something can't be given away or sold -- alienated -- even if you want to give it away or sell it.

Just as you can't, regardless of contract, sell yourself into slavery in most countries, Google's GMail quite possibly violates European law (but not U.S. law, which protects privacy very little if at all).

So a contract is no defense, as contracts for illegal activities are unenforceable.

Re:How can they do this?

[whovian]

In this way it's not different from the privacy concerns voiced when Intel was mentioning processor ID numbers in its Pentium 3.

Re:How can they do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody is perfectly free to use Google without signing up with a Google Account. Right?

Re:How can they do this?

[segmond]

Beta tests technical issue not privacy issue.

Re:How can they do this?

[los furtive]

Beta tests technical issue not privacy issue.

That's a narrow view of things. Beta tests are for ANY issues that arrise, whether they be usability or functionality. The likeliness for usability changes to occure as a result of beta testing are much lower than in alpha testing, but they are by no means excluded (they just piss of the developers more).

And the issue of privacy is certainly a usability issue.

Re:How can they do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

They can do whatever they want. If you don't like it, you don't have to sign up for this service. If nobody uses their service, they'll change things. If people find out about this 5 years after they sign up and are angry, its their own fault for not reading an agreement.

However, these software / usage agreements usually suck to read and are a waste of time, and if I were a judge I could highly sympathize with people that got screwed over by paragraph 9,867 subparagraph 10 section b-73 sentence fragment #10 of the EULA..

I think people should fight to change these sort of things. I think that EULAs should have a privacy section in them that discloses all "waivers" that you are in effect "signing" when accepting the terms of an EULA. And without the long winded verbage - i.e. provide the "legal definition" and a "laymans explanation" in these sections..

Write your congressman. Eliminate spyware.

Re:How can they do this?

[paganizer]

Okay...
it's really simple.
If Intel implants a tracking number in the CPU's, buy AMD.
If A bios manufacturer hard-codes DRM into it's motherboards, don't buy those motherboards.
If (free) Gmail violates your privacy, don't use (free) Gmail.
what exactly is the problem?
has some government come foreward and announced that all citizens MUST use gmail as their only e-mail or something?

Re:How can they do this?

[(54)T-Dub]

If (free) Gmail violates your privacy, don't use (free) Gmail

I thought I would emphasize what seems plainly obvious to me because appearently people don't understand the idea of a free market. If you don't like the practices of a certain company you don't have to use it. A right that most of the people here on /. excersize everyday.

Re:How can they do this?

[MillionthMonkey]

Okay...
it's really simple.
If Intel implants a tracking number in the CPU's, buy AMD.
If A bios manufacturer hard-codes DRM into it's motherboards, don't buy those motherboards.
If (free) Gmail violates your privacy, don't use (free) Gmail.
what exactly is the problem?

The problem is when-

• All CPU manufacturers include tracking numbers
• All BIOS manufacturers hard-code DRM into their motherboards
• All (free and non-free) web-based mail services violate your privacy

This "vote with your feet" argument works for pizzas, but not markets where there are high barriers to entry. A web-based email system isn't a very good example (who can't code up one of those over a weekend?) but the other two are.

Re:How can they do this?

[cayenne8]

The only problem with this that I see is...if I send something to someone on a Gmail acct. or even more likely, someone else forwards something, quoting my to someone with a Gmail account, then, Google has a potentially permanent copy of my information.

I know this happens with normal email today...but, you can generally be more confident that this information is more transient than it will be on the Gmail system.

Re:How can they do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly. There is no such thing as a free service.

All such services are either supported by the service owner (rare), advertising, or by the sale of surfing metrics. By signing up for the service, you are selling your surfing and search metrics, in exchange for a no charge email address.

If you view a lot of pr0n or otherwise don't want your metrics, probably associated with your Gmail address, sold to the highest bidder, to be used in targeted email campaigns, and targeted banner adds, etc, don't sell your privacy for free email.

You ultimately control who tracks you, by what you trade your privacy for, and how you set up your browser. If you don't like it, pay for your email address. Problem is, if it is web based, you are probably being tracked, and your metrics sold, anyway.

In this case, you have every right to be up in arms about privacy. You can still block cookies and have your p3p alert you when cookies get dropped.

Don't complain about (nearly) free email accounts being tracked. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Remember this, next time you enter a contest, sign up for a "free" service etc. You are trading your privacy for it.

L8,
AC

Re:How can they do this?

[Kick the Donkey]

This "vote with your feet" argument works for pizzas, but not markets where there are high barriers to entry.

What high barrier? You got a computer laying around? Got a highspeed internet connection? Start your own web-based mail service...

Re:How can they do this?

[Kick the Donkey]

A web-based email system isn't a very good example (who can't code up one of those over a weekend?) but the other two are.

Er... Its real simple to setup your own web-based mail access:

1. Go to Ilohamail, and download the latest verison
2. .
3. Uncompress in your webroot
4. Go to http://localhost/ilohamail/ and login.

Web-based email on your terms. Who needs to write it from scracth?!?!

For what its worth, I will be givng the new Gmail a shot. We'll see how good it is (I expect it to be great) before I start to decide how I feel about the privacy issue.

Re:How can they do this?

[MillionthMonkey]

For what its worth, I will be givng the new Gmail a shot. We'll see how good it is (I expect it to be great) before I start to decide how I feel about the privacy issue.

Agreed- I think it is going to be successful enough for Microsoft to copy it. And Google is not yet known for privacy abuses.

Re:How can they do this?

[tekunokurato]

Don't own a CPU
Don't own a BIOS
Don't use web-based mail services

Re:How can they do this?

[h4rm0ny]

If you don't like the practices of a certain company you don't have to use it.

Actually, this is irrelevant at this stage. If this challenge is supported then GMail will not be able to legally operate in the manner they want whether people are happy with it or not. A contract cannot overide the laws of a nation and the EU has some fairly strong privacy laws.

Re:How can they do this?

[throughthewire]

...you can generally be more confident that this information is more transient than it will be on the Gmail system

Confident? That's a very dangerous assumption if you're that concerned about your privacy. I maintain quite a few corporate e-mail systems, and one of the biggest problems is convincing people to delete anything - even crap. It's not uncommon for the executives to have mailboxes which exceed 1GB.

I have every business email I have sent or received in the last six years. My assumption is that every email I send is more than likely still out there.

Don't want your messages to be readable by the 'wrong' people? Encrypt 'em real good, or don't use email.

"Don't send anything over email that you wouldn't want published on the front page of USA Today."

Re:How can they do this?

[cicho]

The problem is that there are only two or three CPU manufacturers in the world, and only one or two BIOS manufacturers. And only one Google.

Of course, whatever they do with gmail should in no way affect the search engine itself, and there are hundreds if not thousands of free email account services for those who really need one. So while 'm not much concerned about gmail, your analogous cases are quite problematic, actually.

Re:How can they do this?

[jarich]

It's very different.

You pay money for your CPU and this service is free.

I take great exception to someone tracking me and having me pay for the technology. (I know, but let's ignore my ISP for the moment).

But if someone wants to provide a free service, then you get what you pay for. Be sure you read the terms of service. If you don't like it, use something else.

Intel put their tracking into something you paid $$ for. That's different.

Re:How can they do this?

[SphericalCrusher]

Yeah, but big deal. Who's to say that Microsoft or Yahoo can't just randomly send off your information?

Besides, they shouldn't give too much info if they don't want it given out. Anonymity on the Internet... learn it.

Re:How can they do this?

[timeOday]

I thought the Intel CPUID was a great example and a great precedent - people didn't like it, they said so, and Intel complied.

The economic route you suggest is really not ideal, as there are so many other factors that are mixed into a buying decision. I agree that in theory market pressures would "solve everything" if you could buy anything with any set of options from a large number of suppliers, but that isn't the real world.

Re:How can they do this?

[ArchAngel21x]

That's a great attitude to have, but what happens when you want a service and you only have one choice? I am not saying Google is the only choice, but I am presenting a possible scenario. Or better yet, what if suddenly all e-mail providers like this idea and adopt it? What if all mother boards beging to include DRM. Suddenly changing companies won't fix a damn thing.

Re:How can they do this?

[philipdl71]

The solution to this should be simple. Google should take a stand against these kinds of invasive privacy laws by displaying a message to all users connecting from the *.uk domains explaining that they are legally forbidden from offering the services in the United Kingdom and suggesting that the people contact their politicians and have the laws changed.

Re:How can they do this?

[Uber Banker]

"When disks are so cheap, is it worth my time permantly deleting it" is the (new) old line.

And I agree with it.

I have emails in my 'deleted' box, but there is no pernament delete. I want everything 'just in case' as $100 for an xGB section of a hard disk array is a cheap price for this age of accountability.

Re:How can they do this?

[d00dman]

an amusing coincidence?

http://buzzoff.010-101.com/~cligertwood/Screensh ot .png

Re:How can they do this?

[(54)T-Dub]

Those are a lot of what if's. As long as there is market demand for private e-mail and non DRM mobos then we don't have to worry about it.

Re:How can they do this?

[crackshoe]

two or three CPU manufactueres.... Motorola, IBM, AMD, Intel...

Re:How can they do this?

[blitziod]

encrypt private info you send in emails. Googles computers will not be doing any codebreaking on your free mail acount to try and sell you spy cams or penis pumps.

Re:How can they do this?

[blitziod]

anybody with a job sells themself into ( and out of) slavery for 8 or mroe hours a day. All rights can be waived in SPECIFIC instances. The right to a lawyer( watch cops, the right to free speech ( by signing a confidentuality agreement), the right to life( by refusing medical treatment or joining the army in time of war), the right to any piece of property you own( by selling it), the right to peacably assemble( by signing a non -comp agreement with a company) it is only in GENERAL that these rights can not be taken away.

Re:How can they do this?

[cicho]

Well, we're looking at PCs, so Motorola doesn't count. That's three.

Re:How can they do this?

[pgregg]

I'd imagine the people in this beta have signed some kind of agreement where they say they cannot do anything if they are adversly affected by Gmail, so what's the problem?

Sorry, but in UK law the existance of a contract or agreement, written or not, does not exempt the parties involved from that law.
e.g. If you agree that I may kill you, and I do, that does not make it legal.

In this case, the existance of any agreement, EULA or Terms of Service does not exempt Google/Gmail under privacy laws.

Re:How can they do this?

[KIEDIS]

Well yes there is only one google but you can choose not to use it. At least the email. You can go to certain providers of mail like your ISP or university for example and ask for an account. If you live in france you could even apply for an account in free.fr and they are far much better than that. But for that one you need to live in france because they send you the password to your home.

Re:How can they do this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You still have an option. If you are actually concerned about someone doing improperthings with your personal information in exchange for a webmail accout. Build your own mail server. I know people who've done it. Granted generally more for neat factor then so that they're the only ones who can do improper things with they're personal info, but it is doable, and with very modest hardware too.

I hate to sound like "code it yourself" but the truth is in this case anyway, there is always an other option.

Erase the cookie

[Anonymous Coward]

Erase the cookie. Don't use the service. How do you know Yahoo! doesn't read all it's mail?

Welcome to paranoia.

Re:Erase the cookie

[sgtron]

Hotmail, Yahoo, GMX.. they all *read* your email.. let me explain. All these services have "anti-spam" measures in place. They scan all your email for certain terms that would identify it as spam. Now, what is Google doing differently? They also scan your email, not only for spam words, but for ad keywords. I don't see the big problem here honestly. If you don't want your email scanned for spam terms or ad words, just use a real isp and run your own anti-spam software.

Re:Erase the cookie

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you mean "read it is mail"?

Oh, wait a minute. You meant "read its mail".

Re:Erase the cookie

[sketerpot]

Plaus, it isn't really hard for any ISP to read people's email. I saw one ISP that had a little window open on one computer showing all the emails being sent and recieved. It was striking how many of the emails had the same to and from addresses. Anyway, that just shows: you can't have any *real* email privacy without encryption.

Re:Erase the cookie

[Sethb]

It gets even dumber. People have privacy concerns about Google scanning the e-mail to deliver the AdSense ads, and now this, but they're sending their e-mail around the internet, through god knows what relays, in plain text? Uh, here's an idea, if you're worried about privacy in regards to your e-mail, wrap it in GPG/PGP and be done with it. You don't send important correspondence on a postcard, do you?

Re:Erase the cookie

[0x0d0a]

Erase the cookie.

Doesn't do anything if I voluntarily sign into an account.

Heck, if Slashdot partnered with DoubleClick (and I didn't block ads), it'd be pretty easy to track whatever I do on the Web as well.

Don't use the service.

Doesn't mean it's not a legitimate complaint, though, about the service.

How do you know Yahoo! doesn't read all it's mail?

We don't, though it seems like the whole Yahoo Mail thing is at least as intrusive as Google -- and Yahoo tries to handle all manner of services as well.

I use Google on a "session cookies only" basis, and block ads, which makes it at least somewhat difficult to tie different online personas together.

I do have one (IMHO) legitimate privacy grievance with Google's operation. Google does not let you save preference options in the content of an URL -- language, results size, image content filtering, etc. It is technically possible (and really, pretty easy) to do so, but they prefer to force me to retain a permanent cookie on my system if I wish to use these features (or set the content each time I visit their site). There's a constant nag to give the degree of privacy that I *do* have, which I'm less than thrilled about. I consider search engine cookies pretty much unacceptable based on the sheer amount of data they hand out. You don't have to be searching for how to defraud your employer or for child porn to be uncomfortable with someone having a complete record of everything you're looking for. I view search engines as a tremendous data leak out of companies. Do you Google for things that you're doing research on, or companies that you might be doing business in, or areas/markets that you might be entering? That's sensitive data. What about having a "terrorist keyword red flag list"? Search engines would be an incredibly rich resource for fishing expeditions to find suspicious folks, simply because of the sheer amount of data involved. You think you ever mind wind up in politics? Do you want your opponent to ever be able to dig up the fact that you searched for images of a gay porn actor fifteen years ago? There's an awful lot of very nasty things that can be done with search engine data. Google, on the whole, might be currently playing nice, but that's no guarantee that they will do so in the future, post-IPO, when shareholders are demanding more profits and a partnership with DoubleClick could net Google a loooot of money...

Re:Erase the cookie

[r5t8i6y3]

one problem with this approach is the pervasiveness of cookies designed for tracking. once your email is out there and linked to certain cookies (and thus profiles) the only way to "de-link" your email address is either to get rid of it or to stop accepting cookies *everywhere*.

double-click is an example that makes the problem easy to visualize. they run advertisements with cookies on many different sites. once they've started a profile on you any time you link (directly or indirectly) to one of their advertisements your profile grows.

once your email has been added to your profile it's too late.

google is no different than double-click in that they are a for-profit-company. that's why they keep their options open with respect to their privacy policy. if selling your personal data becomes very profitable (especially if they were experiencing financial hardship - i know that doesn't sound possible today) they'd do it in a heartbeat. they would be even more likely to do this post-ipo which seems like it will happen eventually.

i had a yahoo email address that i was using "anonymously". put in fake information like lots of folks. then one day a few months ago i noticed that all of the fake information had been replaced by my *real* information. now, i know a bit about anonymity, and while i wasn't under any delusions about the level of anonymity i had at yahoo i was surprised to see all of my personal data displayed given that i never explicitly gave yahoo that data.

since most companies profiling us are driven only by the bottom line and have no vision for a *better* society, yet have a very large impact on the way our society develops, it would be wise to roll back their influence on our lives, IMNSHO.

Re:Erase the cookie

[Dulimano]

No. This is the case where the total (my inbox and outbox) is more than the sum of its parts (my individual mails). As a mathematician, I'm not very concerned about someone reading any specific mail of mine. But I'm very concerned about someone building a profile about me, based on all of my mails. I'd like to see services that guarantee that such thing will not happen. But Google seems to promise that it will happen. Everyone subscribing should fully understand this and all of its implications.

Re:Erase the cookie

[LnxAddct]

Just encrpyt all your emails, they'll have a great profile of random bits :). And they said they'll probably let you use outside clients for free so it makes it even easier to encrypt, no biggy. Regards, Steve

Re:Erase the cookie

[CristalShandaLear]

i had a yahoo email address that i was using "anonymously". put in fake information like lots of folks. then one day a few months ago i noticed that all of the fake information had been replaced by my *real* information. now, i know a bit about anonymity, and while i wasn't under any delusions about the level of anonymity i had at yahoo i was surprised to see all of my personal data displayed given that i never explicitly gave yahoo that data. When you filled out the info and they asked you for another email address, did you give them another email address that contains your "real" info? And if so, was it another yahoo address? Just curious. I find this very interesting as I use different yahoo profiles for different things. Nothing insidious. Just different id's for different games I play or different groups I belong to. I'm going to check my profile information today on all my accounts and see if anything has been changed? I'm also curious if anyone else has experienced this.

Re:Erase the cookie

[Anonymous Coward]

use pgp.

Re:Erase the cookie

[Anonymous Coward]

Which email service do you use, yahoo and hotmail do exactly the same. How many stats building cookies do you have from banner ads? And when exactly did google say they'd be doing profile building, unlike Yahoo who say it explicitly in their privacy section.

Re:Erase the cookie

[r5t8i6y3]

nope, all completely unique bogus info. my brother's wife has had the same experience.

Re:Erase the cookie

[Wycliffe]

Slashdot does partner with doubleclick,
because as a rule, I do not block ads,
but every once in a while one of slashdot's
ads is blocked because I do block doubleclick.

Re:Erase the cookie

[HiThere]

I'm not sure how you do that with a web-mail interface...

Re:Erase the cookie

[rjamestaylor]

Exactly what I was going to point out. I see DoubleClick requests often on Slashdot.

Since I run a webserver on localhost, my host file entry brings up interesting results based on what template I have active at the time.

Re:Erase the cookie

[randyest]

Right, but if you're in that enlightened land of fantastic personal privacy protection that is the UK or other parts of socialist Europe, you'll have to hand over the keys to decrypt to the government or law enforcement on demand or face jail time.

But gmail keeping your v1ag4ra spam on file after you delete it is a much more pressing issue.

Wankers.

Re:Erase the cookie

[randyest]

Copy and paste?

Duh.

Re:Erase the cookie

[WhiteDragon]

Well, you could do it like Hushmail does, and encrypt the mail using a client-side java applet so the mail is already encrypted before it even gets to their servers.

Tit for Tat

[Fortress]

Seems to me that if they give you a free gig of space, some targeted ads aren't too much to pay. Why not use some other mail and store it on your PC if you feel this is too invasive?

Re:Tit for Tat

[sphealey]

Seems to me that if they give you a free gig of space, some targeted ads aren't too much to pay.

That's the current line of thought, particularly on the libertarian side of the Internet.

I will note, however, that at least in the United States we went ahead and outlawed indentured servitude, even though (a) it was usually entered into voluntarily (b) it often had a net benefit to the indentured party. Still, we felt that the moral and social cost of the "servitude" part was too high to allow individuals to enter into that sort of contract.

Perhaps the privacy advocates are arguing along the same lines here.

I will also note that while Google claims that one of their corporate policies is "don't be evil", they also absolutely refuse to discuss or explain almost any facet of their operations. Just a thought.

sPh

Re:Tit for Tat

[orthogonal]

Seems to me that if they give you a free gig of space, some targeted ads aren't too much to pay.

"Seems to me, Mr. Jefferson, if England gives you the security of their navy, a little taxation without representation isn't too much to pay."

"Seems to me, Mr, Franklin, if we can give up a little liberty for security, that isn't too much to pay."

"Seems to me, Mr. Churchill, giving up 'a distant country of which we know nothing' in order to get 'peace in our time' isn't too much to pay"

Do you write no email that is personal enough that you'd object to Google looking through it in order to serve up ads?

If you're willing to give up your privacy for mere convenience, what else are you prepared to give up?

How much for your right to vote? A gigabyte of space? Two?

How much for that freedom of speech -- I mean, when did you last need that? And freedom of assembly, will you throw that in too, for say, three gigabytes?

You're not hiding anything in your email, so you're probably not hilding anything your house either -- let's install some free anti-crime cameras in your bedroom -- for your protection of course.

Did I miss the memo telling me that Americans had become so lazy we can't even get up off the couch to protect our privacy anymore?

Alles in Ordnung, Herr Reichsminister!

Re:Tit for Tat

[RyanJBlack]

it often had a net benefit to the indentured party.

Yeah, it sounds like it was an awesome time:

In theory, the person is only selling his or her labor. In practice, however, indentured servants were basically slaves and the courts enforced the laws that made it so. The treatment of the servant was harsh and often brutal. In fact, the Virginia Colony prescribed "bodily punishment for not heeding the commands of the master."

(from NAI)

See, the problem with it "often" having a net benefit to the indentured party is that it can cause really bad "net losses." I'm sure that people who eat expired meat "often" have a net benefit, but that once-in-a-while will sure mess you up.

As a society, I don't think that there can be a reasonable argument for a "net benefit" given by indentured servitued once you reach a certain population/growth rate.

Re:Tit for Tat

[MaccaUK]

Indentured Servitude - you mean working for an employer these days???

Re:Tit for Tat

[ThePretender]

I will also note that while Google claims that one of their corporate policies is "don't be evil", they also absolutely refuse to discuss or explain almost any facet of their operations. Just a thought.

That'll change once they go public :-)

Re:Tit for Tat

[sphealey]

The treatment of the servant was harsh and often brutal.

Well, we are headed way off topic here. And I don't want to sound as if I am defending the practice. But you leave out two other factors: those who accepted the indentures often had a very low life expectancy and low chances of having children if they stayed where they were (serfs, etc). And the immigrants who come to North American in the 1700s and survived (which I am not saying all of them did!) had a very high percentage chance of entering the middle or even upper middle class by the 2nd or 3rd generation - not something that was happening very much in Europe or Asia at the time.

So it was a gamble: stay here and probably die, or take a chance of dying as an indentured servant but, if I survive, having a much better life.

Just glad I don't face that choice.

sPh

Re:Tit for Tat

[bstuff]

If you're willing to give up your privacy for mere convenience, what else are you prepared to give up? How much for your right to vote? A gigabyte of space? Two? How much for that freedom of speech -- I mean, when did you last need that? And freedom of assembly, will you throw that in too, for say, three gigabytes? You're not hiding anything in your email, so you're probably not hilding anything your house either -- let's install some free anti-crime cameras in your bedroom -- for your protection of course. Did I miss the memo telling me that Americans had become so lazy we can't even get up off the couch to protect our privacy anymore? Give me a break! Encrypt your email if you're that paranoid. Then google can't "target you" with scary ads. To compare an automated innocuous keyword search to provide relevant ads (btw already happening when you search with google *gasp*) to giving away personal liberty is like comparing Tollhouse cookies with Weapons of Mass Destruction. Your slippery-slope argument has to at least reach the slope before you can argue.

Re:Tit for Tat

[bstuff]

Wrong fsck'n button...preview...not...submit

Re:Tit for Tat

[Fortress]

Wow, I think you're getting fired up on a non-issue here. Your rights aren't being violated, if you feel that Googol's scanning your mail for ads is invasive, then don't sign up. The analogies youhave madew are all coercive, whereas Gmail is voluntary.

I can CHOOSE to give up my right to privacy in this matter to a company I trust without giving up my Right to Privacy in general, let alone my free speech, voting and assembly.

You seem to be strong on rights. What about Googol's right to offer a service for no money in exchange for policies they lay out in their eula? They are by no means being coercive, they have no monopoly on email and are merely trying to float a new internet service. They are not even being deceitful about it, as we all know about their advertising policy before the service is released to the public.

This is not some mandatory big government service here, merely a private company trying something different.

Re:Tit for Tat

[Cleetus Freem]

Comparing indentured servitude to participating in Google's gmail is, if not ridiculous, a stretch in more ways than one. While what you say about most indentured servants is to a certain extent true (a fair number lived and died little better than slaves), it is also true that those servants often had no other option than to become indentured if they wished for a chance to better their lot in life. We felt that the moral cost was high because too many indentured servants were abused or starved or simply turned into slaves in all but name. This is far from the case with Google's gmail. For a potential indentured servant (usually from the lower classes and without money), choosing not to become one would have resulted a life limited to undesirable, menial labor with most "professional" positions being forever out of reach. For a potential online email user, choosing not to use gmail results in no limitations of any sort at all and has no impact on one's email access/usage at all.

Re:Tit for Tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you really this obtuse or are you trying to make a point?

Those examples aren't even remotely the same. Analogy is the weakest form of argument for a reason, perhaps you should figure out what that is.

Re:Tit for Tat

[Theaetetus]

Do you write no email that is personal enough that you'd object to Google looking through it in order to serve up ads?

Do you Yahoo? Do you notice their auto-quoting feature that adds the > brackets in different colors? Do you write no email that is personal enough that you'd object to Yahoo looking through it in order to serve up that feature?

The point, and the answer, is the same. There is no person reading your email at the company, merely an automated script, and it's looking for keywords. Additionally, the results are blindly served back up to you through the same automated process. If you talk about 'golf balls' in your email, you'll see 'golf ball' ads. However, the golf ball manufacturers don't get a note in the mail saying that orthogonal@gmail.com is interested in their services. No one gets that note, not even anyone at Google. The manufacturers do get charged for the ad, and know merely that 1 person looked at their ad (or more likely several hundred looked at their ad each week/month, the same way that the ads work now).

So what privacy have you given up?

Finally, unlike your other examples, there is no requirement to use Gmail, and no clear benefit to using it over other services except for the specific features it provides - Google's searching through your archived emails. As many have pointed out, there are hundreds of other email providers, and several, including Spymac.com, are offering or will be offering 1 gig storage. If Jefferson could choose the benefits of England's navy, France's navy, Spain's navy, etc., then that would make more sense in your example... But wait, he did, and he chose France, who had terms more acceptable to him.

-T

Re:Tit for Tat

[sphealey]

> For a potential online email user, choosing
> not to use gmail results in no limitations
> of any sort at all and has no impact on
> one's email access/usage at all.

That, I am afraid, often turns out not to be the case. It is virtually impossible to earn a living in the United States without a drivers license and credit card, two "optional" documents that many citizens didn't have 50 years ago, just to use one example.

Google currently controls 80% of Internet search and is now digging into other Internet services. I don't doubt that governments are watching them very carefully. Just as the UK recently announced that use of Internet Explorer would be required to do business on government web sites, I can easily see citizens being required to use a specific mail provider (such as Gmail) if the "want" to, for example, renew their license plates on-line. And oh yeah, we moved the only physical license plate office to East Nowheresville. Sorry about that.

Also,when your employers outsources their e-mail service to Google (which occured to me 30 seconds after reading the description of the service), you will have no choice but to use it. Yeah, yeah, you can keep your personal mail separate. Everyone does that.

sPh

Re:Tit for Tat

[General Wesc]

Do you write no email that is personal enough that you'd object to Google looking through it in order to serve up ads?

I sure don't. I have no secrets from mindless machines so long as they don't spread this information to humans.

If you're willing to give up your privacy for mere convenience, what else are you prepared to give up?

I don't seek privacy from computers, but from people. A computer can know anything about me for all I care. I just need assurances that no person can access that information.

Granted, I don't think Google can provide strong enough assurance that I feel safe having my email stored permenently (because they can be subpoenaed, if for no other reason). But I encrypt all my stuff about bombing the White House and molesting little girls.

(Disclamer: I don't molest little girls and I do not intend to bomb the Hhite House, nor do I intend to assist anyone else in these activities.)

Re:Tit for Tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but did you just compare Google's email server to Nazi Germany?

Goodwin's Law has been invoked. Everyone out of the pool.

Re:Tit for Tat

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn dude. It's email. If you don't like it don't use it simple as that, nobody is forcing you. And your nieve if you believe other email providers don't gander at your email, thats what virus/spam scanners do grab keywords categorize, hell your folders, it does that too. So google has a program doing the same but in addition it puts a ad in there, big whoopdy doo. And you know what, at least google is honest about it, only reason it makes any press is because they are up front about it. Get a grip.

Re:Tit for Tat

[rainman_bc]

So under your premise then, when you go to MacDonalds, and they have marketing material up on the wall, it's indentured servitude?

You're using Google's servers FOR FREE. You are in their place of business. Seems perfectly normal to me that they would show you an ad by using keywords in your email. Better that than seeing an X10 or Casino ad popup every time you browse a page.

You must have learned this term in school and have been dying to use it for a month now. Your point is not very pragmatic.

Re:Tit for Tat

[Tin Foil Hat]

Did I miss the memo telling me that Americans had become so lazy we can't even get up off the couch to protect our privacy anymore?

Oops. I was supposed to send that 15 years ago! I guess I was too busy watching eMTyVee. Sorry.

Re:Tit for Tat

[RyanJBlack]

LOL. Point well taken, and yes we're way off topic.

I'm glad I don't face that choice either... I was simply saying that the reason something is outlawed is rarely because of the result it "often" causes. More likely, something is outlawed for the severity of the harm it can cause (or, probably more often, is believed to cause).

Re:Tit for Tat

[stanmann]

I know many people with no credit cards and unless you live in "East Nowheresville" you likely do not NEED a drivers license. I made it to age 25 without one and I know of others who have made it past 40... Its a choice...

Re:Tit for Tat

[William Tanksley]

But nobody's giving up privacy -- we're talking about a company that publicly states that it does what every mail server has to do as a matter of course.

Yes, they parse your email. That's part of SMTP (HELO, mcfly). They store it; that's part of webmail. They go through it; that's part of syntax highlighting. They index it; that's part of search capability. They may not wipe it out when you delete it; that's part of the cost of a distributed system.

Google isn't the only one that does ANY of this; all of the others do as well, including your ISP and _certainly_ including the big webmail providers (because they ALSO throw in advertising). The difference is that Google tells you EXACTLY what they're doing.

This is honesty, plain and simple. They should be rewarded for it.

-Billy

Re:Tit for Tat

[geminidomino]

will also note that while Google claims that one of their corporate policies is "don't be evil", they also absolutely refuse to discuss or explain almost any facet of their operations. Just a thought.

That'll change once they go public :-)

Which part, the hush or the "Don't Be Evil?"

Re:Tit for Tat

[Anonymous Coward]

> > Seems to me that if they give you a free gig of space, some targeted ads aren't too much to pay.

> I will note, however, that at least in the United States we went ahead and outlawed indentured servitude, even though (a) it was usually entered into voluntarily (b) it often had a net benefit to the indentured party. Still, we felt that the moral and social cost of the "servitude" part was too high to allow individuals to enter into that sort of contract.

> Perhaps the privacy advocates are arguing along the same lines here.

Right, we stated that some rights are inalienable, thus outlawing indentured servitude. Just tell me what inalienable right is being violated by targeted ads and I'll agree with said privacy advocates.

Re:Tit for Tat

[ThePretender]

both. the hush for legal reasons, the "don't be evil" because of the hush being lifted.

Re:Tit for Tat

[necrognome]

at some point in time, orthogonal stepped off the reality bus and imagined that GMail would be the only email service available on the planet. silly him.

Re:Tit for Tat

[rkww]

"Seems to me, Mr. Churchill, giving up 'a distant country of which we know nothing' in order to get 'peace in our time' isn't too much to pay"

Actually Neville Chamberlain said this after the Minich Conference (referring, in 1938, to Czechoslovakia).

Re:Tit for Tat

[orthogonal]

Actually Neville Chamberlain said this after the Minich (sic) Conference (referring, in 1938, to Czechoslovakia).

Yeah, amazing that I would get the quotation exactly right and yet attribute it to another person.

And yes, it's what Chamberlain said to justify his appeasement at Munich, which allowed Hitler the Sudetenland, and soon after, all of Czechoslovakia.

If you had followed the pattern of my post, you'd have sen that it consisted of unnamed individuals proposing giving up liberties to named defenders of liberty, to Jefferson, Franklin, and Churchill. The implication is that Chamberlain or a Chamberlain surrogate is arguing with Churchill, not that Churchill is arguing for this policy.

Thanks for playing.

Eternal cookie

[JosKarith]

This would be the cookie that doesn't expire till 2038 yes?

Re:Eternal cookie

[DaHat]

I'm sure I'd format my system once or twice between now and then.

Re:Eternal cookie

[LiquidCoooled]

Mmmmmmmmmm

long life Cookies and milk.

*settles down for a nap under the server cabinet*

Re:Eternal cookie

[dr_dank]

Eternity is only until 2038? Awesome! Now I have something to tell those religious wackos that hassle passers-by in the city.

Repent or burn for all of eternity!

oh yeah, thats only 34 more years sucker!

Re:Eternal cookie

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother bakes those cookies. Hard as a rock.

Two Cookies Would Fix it

[PetoskeyGuy]

After all not even a company like google could keep track of that much information. :P

Re:Two Cookies Would Fix it

[System.out.println()]

You DO realize you're talking about the company that has cached the Internet, correct? And in RAM, no less (if I recall correctly - maybe it was just the most used pages that are cached in RAM.)

Re:Two Cookies Would Fix it

[Anonymous Coward]

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! What an idiot. Google searches less than ONE FUCKING PERCENT of the World Wide Web! THE END! Mod parent down -1000000 RETARDED!

Re:Two Cookies Would Fix it

[Anonymous Coward]

Which dumbass moderated this guy insightful?

These providers can't just do as they please...

[Anonymous Coward]

"These providers can't just do as they please and hide behind a contract," Privacy International's Davies said.

YES they can! it's called an eula...

Re:These providers can't just do as they please...

[prisonernumber7]

The impact of EULAs is doubtable in Europe. In my country, Austria, EULAs are not legaly binding as far as I know.

Er...

[Inuchance]

If you don't want them to have your personal info, then don't provide it! GMail is a service, not a requirement.

Re:Er...

[DroopyStonx]

Hahaha, it's funny how you people say, "It's a service, not a requirement," but when invasion of privacy actually happens to you it's suddenly not okay.

Example: Tivo. Tivo isn't required, but people got all up in arms because they captured info about what people watched (which is kind of a bullshit thing to do). They aren't exactly identifying YOU, just your data, so it's not REALLY an issue. Either way, it's still not cool to know that something you bought that is yours is sending data about the shit you watch to someone else.

Just because a company violates privacy issues doesn't make it "okay" simply because it's "a service, not a requirement," because you know as well as I that there are a ton of braindead computer users who sign up for things not knowing what they are.

Re:Er...

[caitsith01]

This is similar in a sense to the 'if you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't mind having a video camera in your house/giving a DNA sample/signing this confession/having Palladium in your computer/letting the government see what you're watching on DivX' type reasoning, and with all due respect it is bunk.

The point is not that something bad is definitely going to happen as a result of Google's policy. The point is that this moves the _presumption_ from automatic assumption of privacy to an automatic assumption of non-privacy, which is a dangerous precedent, especially if this is even a small fraction as popular as the search engine itself.

This reasoning, which I have seen a number of times already in GMail discussions, also smacks of 'if you don't like it, move to Russia,' or in this case, Hotmail.

Re:Er...

[markfive]

No, only people like you got all up in arms. The vast majority of people didn't give two shits about Tivos "privacy violations".

Re:Er...

[Simon Lyngshede]

So it is okay to provide a service which breaks the law, because poeple aren't being forced to use it?

Is it the okay to encourage to steal, kill and rape, because they don't need to do it, it is just a suggestion? As far as I know this is also illegal in most countries.

Re:Er...

[LiquidCoooled]

Thats the thing,

They arent violating your privacy.

They are indexing YOUR emails to target adverts to YOU. Also remember, that they are using this information to allow searching for stuff inside your own emails.

There wont be a random flag on google.com's front page to allow searching someone elses email

I wont get targeted adverts for content stored in YOUR email.

Or could you.......

Your search within "billgates@gmail.com" for - "Linux installation" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
- Try different keywords.
- Try more general keywords.
- Try hijacking another email address.

Re:Er...

[goatan]

If you don't want them to have your personal info, then don't provide it! GMail is a service, not a requirement.

Err. who said it was a requirement to use it. Just because you are not required to use a service does not meen that service is not required to follow the law (which is the whole point of the articule)

Re:Er...

[FictionPimp]

I call it evolution. If you are too stupid to read what you are getting into, you deserve what you get. That is the biggest problem with the US today. Everything thinks they are entitled to be a freakin moron. "How was i suppose to know the coffee was hot!", "How was I supose to know eating junk would make me fat", "How was I supose to know the warning labels on cig's were real", "How was I supose to know they collected my information and I was supose to read those privacy letters I get in the mail".

I think these people deserve to get screwed. When I sign up for google mail. I will be aware that they are parsing my email and targeting ads to me. I accept that. And I will keep my private email to another accoount, this one will be a nice public email to give my mother who likes to forward me hundreds of messages a week, and to sign up for things that might bring me spam. That way I dont have to go in and delete it every month like I do hotmail. But you know what? If google wants to read about how I can make my boobs and penis bigger and give everyone in the world more orgasams. I dont care because they already told me they would.

That said, I would be very ticked off if I found out 6 months down the road they were doing it without ever telling us. I would rather see a company be honest about their policys then hide it and screw unsuspecting people over later.

Re:Er...

[DroopyStonx]

No, only people like you got all up in arms.

I don't own a tivo. The reason alone that they capture the info (whether it's used to identify you or not) makes me not want one. *shrug*

Re:Er...

[duffbeer703]

Who is forcing you to use Gmail?

Some people choose to get a free vacation by going to timeshare previews and enduring daily four hour sales presentations. Should that be illegal?

If you agree to Google's clearly posted terms and conditions, use their service. Otherwise, use email provided by other websites, your employer, your ISP or yourself.

Give us all a break.

Re:Er...

[goatan]

They arent violating your privacy.

They are indexing YOUR emails to target adverts to YOU. by not deleting your e-mails when you delete them or de-register they are violating privacy and breaking the law in the EU

Also remember, that they are using this information to allow searching for stuff inside your own emails.

Why is that's a good reason to break the law?

Re:Er...

[Anonymous Coward]

That said, I would be very ticked off if I found out 6 months down the road they were doing it without ever telling us.

Like how cigarette manufacturers suppressed information on the health risks of smoking? Or how junk food manufacturers put out misinformation on their food? Or like that case where one restaurant was selling coffee at a drivein window at a temperature so high that if you spilt it on yourself you would receive third-degree burns, despite being repeatedly ordered by the courts to lower their coffee temperature to the industry standard? I mean, you are ticked off with those things too, right?

Re:Er...

[LiquidCoooled]

pressing [f3] in windows or outlook (shudder) and asking it to search is exactly the same.

I can search through my entire filesystem/mails for data.

Infact, doesnt windows (2000/xp) index your files by default?

Is this also illegal?

As I recall from the article, the complaint is not with the searching, but with the residual data which remains on the server after closing the account or delting a mail.

When I delete a file from my desktop, it leaves residual information - I can at a later date go and attempt to recover it if I need to.

Exactly the same thing happens every day, and with much more information - Used computers given a quick format (at best, sometimes even just a new user account) are passed around and nobody bats an eyelid.

I smell a big fat MSN or Yahoo sized rat at the root of this complaint.

Re:Er...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I personally am glad to provide anonymous data about the shows I watch. It's like voting for the shows I like. In my country people vote for stuff. And we aren't all bitter and jealous of other countries.

Re:Er...

[SgtChaireBourne]

Spam bots are not the only thing which can dig through your mail. The same mechanism to target ads can be used for political persecution as well.

Re:Er...

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha another bitter non-American. You think that lady didn't know her coffee was hot? Of course she did. You're actually talking about problems with American legal system. In fact technically one could say that lady was smart enough to take advantage of the flawed system and get a bunch of cash. How much cash have you got smarty? But anyhow, so you are telling me everyone in your great country is a certified genius? Where is it? I'll come check.

Re:Er...

[FictionPimp]

I guess i'm just smarter then everyone. I was able to figure out that when they told me in school that smoking caused cancer that it did. Or when they taught me about the food groups and that you need to exercise and eat right to stay in shape, that they were not just trying to waste my time. As for mcdonalds, its freakin coffee, are you saying the industry standard for coffee would not burn you, and are you also saying that lady wouldn't of sued even if it was a minor burn at the correct temp? If so I'll take that one back. The point is, people need to take responsiblity into their own hands instead of whining about it. If people dont use google's service, they will be forced to change thier policys. Do you think if everyone suddenly switched to linux microsoft wouldn't change the way it does buisness to compete? Or would they just die? I'm just sick of all the people who think if they whine enough the whole world will change. There is only one way to vote, with your buisness. If you dont give them your buisness, you arn't effected by their policys. IF enough people dont give them their buisness, they will change their policys.

Re:Er...

[goatan]

Exactly the same thing happens every day, and with much more information - Used computers given a quick format (at best, sometimes even just a new user account) are passed around and nobody bats an eyelid.

Not exactly true when that has happend companys have been fined. the important thing is You have control over what happens to the data about yourself

Re:Er...

[CristalShandaLear]

No, only people like you got all up in arms. The vast majority of people didn't give two shits about Tivos "privacy violations".

The vast majority of people didn't KNOW until TIVO edited out Janet Jackson's boob incident after the SuperBowl because it was being replayed so often.

I guess it will take google interfering with t&a before anyone cares.

I think I'll run for president under the platfor "Let's all google search for porn and make the world a better place."

I won't win because I'm a woman though.

Re:Er...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was able to figure out that when they told me in school that smoking caused cancer that it did.

Er...you were only told that because a lot of doctors, in the teeth of bitter industry opposition, managed to prove that it did. Your parent's generation were not told this. Your grandparent's generation were told by the industry that smoking was *beneficial* to health, despite the fact that the industry knew perfectly well that it caused cancer. That's what the lawsuits were about.

So, no, you're not smarter. You're luckier. You're lucky that people died in your place, and fought the industry in court to get them punished. When you denigrate that effort, you're certainly not smarter than most people, you're far, far stupider. The industry loves to see sheep like you bleat out that sort of opinion.

are you saying the industry standard for coffee would not burn you

It wouldn't cause third-degree burns requiring skin grafts, no.

are you also saying that lady wouldn't of sued even if it was a minor burn at the correct temp

She wouldn't have sued for her hospital bills for the skin grafts, no, because she wouldn't have had them. If she had sued for distress, the suit would have easily been dismissed by showing that the coffee was at the standard, safe temperature that every other restaurant in the whole continental USA serves it at and manages to avoid frivolous lawsuits.

I'm just sick of all the people who think if they whine enough the whole world will change.

It will. It's known as "democracy". You might be interested in it.

Re:Er...

[rackhamh]

Stealing, killing, and raping are not comparable because the victim has not signed up to be robbed, killed, or raped.

This situation is more comparable to illegal drugs: you take them knowing that there are risks, and accepting the consequences of those risks. If you don't like the odds, you don't do the drugs, plain and simple.

Same deal with GMail. If you don't want Google to defile the sanctity of your email, then don't use it, and don't send sensitive information to anybody who does.

Re:Er...

[Simon Lyngshede]

Still illegal, so is dealing drugs by the way.

Re:Er...

[rackhamh]

Yes, you're right, it's absolutely illegal.

Do you really think that it's comparable to stealing, killing, and raping, though? Those crimes involve unsuspecting victims. Drugs and GMail involve users willfully engaging in a transaction with known risks.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your argument, but this comparison seems similar to the "if we allow homosexuality we might as well allow pedophilia" argument... apples and oranges, IMO.

Re:Er...

[Anonymous Coward]

:) fair point

So?

[System.out.println()]

You want a gig of email but with privacy? Go sign up at Spymac. It's also free, and it's already here - and not in beta. And they don't read your email.

Re:So?

[fetus]

"And they don't read your email."

spy mac?

Re:So?

[System.out.println()]

The name is much older than the email service - it used to be just forums, probably for rumor reporting and discussion back in the day.

Now it functions very well as a replacement to .Mac - free, even. 100MB webspace FREE, a gig of email FREE, iCal hosting, 250MB for pictures - yes - FREE. I'm amazed they turn a profit at all. (They have paid web hosting as well, something like $17/month for a couple domains and 1GB webspace... still a pretty good deal.)

Re:So?

[greygent]

Yea, THERE'S a reputable organization reknown for their datacenters, data integrity, and long-term stayability.

How long will this service last at SpyMac? A month?

Re:So?

[System.out.println()]

Longer than you might think.

It's been steadily growing for years, and the current site is its third revision. It's mature, and as long as a small portion of the users pay for their stuff (advanced hosting, auctions, their new Backup program) they'll be profitable long into the future. Hell that might not even be necessary - the ads might be profitable themselves, or at least break even.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

But machines do read your email, how do you think it get's off the server on to your machine?

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yea, THERE'S a reputable organization reknown for their datacenters, data integrity, and long-term stayability.

> How long will this service last at SpyMac? A month?

You don't get it. Spymac don't offer imap or advance search, hence 1Gb is useless there.

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what I mean. They don't use the email for anything besides delivering it to you.

Re:So?

[System.out.println()]

They're actually working on IMAP support. Considering how many features they've added recently, I'd say it's probably a safe bet that if searching is in high demand, they'll add that as well.

Re:So?

[tugtac]

After the registration process, I got: Warning: mail(): Could not execute mail delivery program '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i ' in /var/www/www.spymac.com/classes/global_class.inc on line 617 Looks like no spymac account for me. :(

Re:So?

[System.out.println()]

Heh, what a time for their registration to break....

I'll post in the support forums about this, see if they can get this fixed - I'll reply here again if they do.

Re:So?

[greygent]

Sorry, but I've found that model eventually fails... por at least provides for really crappy service. I'd much rather be required to dump a yearly fee into something, so at least to know it'll be around for a while. As I'm told SpyMac doesn't offer IMAP or anything of the sort, backing up my email would probably be an interesting perl script to write.

Re:So?

[System.out.println()]

They don't offer IMAP *yet* - AtariST has said several times that it's being worked on.

I guess my experience must be different from yours - I've found that large sites like this that offer free services seem to stick around. (Though on small ones I certainly agree, they're pretty likely to fail.) For example: google has never charged the users money for their search functionality, and...well, look where they are. Not to mention Yahoo, Amazon, et al.

Plus, Spymac's paid services are a good deal - for example, $17/month for 1GB webspace and 3 domains (I think - dont quote me on that), or the one I'm going to sign up for soon, $20/year for 250MB, ad removal, and Spymac Backup.

Unless you have a good example of a free service as large as Spymac that has died, I'll be confident in its ability to survive. :)

Re:So?

[System.out.println()]

Well on the forums a number of people are saying Hotmail and Yahoo are rejecting Spymac's confirmation emails... maybe not the same problem you were having but something to keep in mind.

also in the BBC

[tuxette]

BBC Article

This is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, they aren't charging for the service, nor are they forcing you to use it. Do you expect privacy with a "free" online mail service? No, so why complain about this?

I am all for privacy groups, but pissing and moaning about a free service that you may or may not want to take advantage of is flat out stupid, especially when you can just use PGP/GnuPG and not worry about it.

Nobody's forcing you...

[LinuxOnHal]

If someone has a problem with the way the advertising is done, then they shouldn't use it. It is not like Google is hiding all of this information from their users.

All of this complaining and bickering for a service that is not yet released...

Re:Nobody's forcing you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god. You idiots and your "well, you don't have to use it." STFU. Fucking retards. In that case, drugs should be legal. If you don't like drugs, then don't fucking buy from the dealers.

Re:Nobody's forcing you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah...you fucking idiots that think everything is free, need to take your heads out of your asses and realize that *somebody* pays for everything, be it you, the end user (god forbid) or sponsors. Think about that next time you send e-mail from your free hotmail account with your pirated copy of Windows.

Re:Nobody's forcing you...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Think about that next time you send e-mail from your free hotmail account with your pirated copy of Windows."

And yet somehow, Microsoft is still one of the richest, most profitable companies on Earth. I saw Bill Gates is down to 2nd on the rich list - must be because he is losing so much money on Hotmail accounts...

Re:Nobody's forcing you...

[InodoroPereyra]

If someone has a problem with the way the advertising is done, then they shouldn't use it. It is not like Google is hiding all of this information from their users. I strongly disagree:

• If Google terms of service violate European law, it is appropriate for Europe based people to complain.
• Google listens. If they are taking a wrong turn, it is wise to let them know.
• So, if a company offers to do something illegal to its customers, do you think the company is untouchable, because you are not forced to be its customer ? This is just nonsense.
• Yes, they are honest, and you can probably trust their current management. But what will happen to your personal data in future under new management ?

It's funny. Your same argument has been used to death by microsofties before: what's wrong with microsoft ? Nobody forces to use their products. Yeah ...

Re:Nobody's forcing you...

[Delphinios]

I don't use Microsoft Products, actually.

Microsoft's issue, as noted above, is the fact that they work really hard to force people to pay for their product, even if they don't use it. And then force those that do, to become more and more dependant on their products through exclusion of third-party options.

Google wants to simply run a script that will place ads based upon keywords found in your email. They have to put that "will not guarentee deletion of your email" in there due to backups and the way their clustering system works.

Google has earned my trust, Microsoft has earned my distrust.

Ummm???

[FortKnox]

How about you demand a refund?

Its free and its not mandatory. Quit whining.

Re:Ummm???

[Anonymous Coward]

How about whining about your punctuation?

"it's" means "it is". "its" is possessive.

1Gb of mail

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm giving a fuck about privacy... What other mail provider that supply 1Gb of storage and cool search tools over your mailbox? And Yahoo! and others collect your data also...

Hello?!

[gt25500]

Since when is Google forcing people to use this service? If you do not like the policy, do not use this free service.
Why should Google provide a service (a large one at that) and get nothing out of it?
News Flash!Nothing in this world is free.

Re:Hello?!

[Martin Blank]

Thank you.

I have several credit cards attached to my frequent flier program. I get a couple more e-mails and a couple more snail mails a month, but for no additional effort on my part (except for skimming through a couple of offers each month), I get a few thousand extra frequent flier miles each year. It's not enough for a free flight on its own, but it can push me over the edge if I'm close enough.

They have all kinds of information on me -- spending habits, information on where I live and where I travel -- but I entered into the contract willingly. I gave up a small part of my privacy in exchange for a benefit to me.

Re:FP!!

[darien]

YW.

I wish to register a complaint

[minus9]

I wish to complain about the post I am going to make half an hour from now. It is inflammatory and totally uncalled for.

Re:I wish to register a complaint

[Anonymous Coward]

You better follow up on this, I will be watching your posting history over the next hour.

Re:I wish to register a complaint

[Anonymous Coward]

About the Norwegian Blue? Lovely bird, eh? Beau'iful plumage!

Gmail - Opt-In

[Silwenae]

I can understand the concerns Europeans may have, but then again, this is an opt-in procedure.

If you don't want to use Gmail, you have other options through your ISP, other free services, etc.

It just seems to me this is an extension of social networking, but from a business perspective. - target based advertising based on what you surf for based on your cookie.

It seems similar in a way to what Gnome's Nat Friedman wants to do with Dashboard. Based on your email & IM, having the desktop provide you with links to what you're talking about.

To me, the pro's at this point from what we know may outweight the cons - yes they'll target me with ad's based on my surfing behavior, but the ability to index and search my email rather than using "To" "From" and "Subject" headers is definitely a step forward in email management.

Re:Gmail - Opt-In

[Throtex]

I, on the other hand, have serious trouble understanding anything the Europeans do. I'm glad you've figured them out. :)

Re:Gmail - Opt-In

[Anonymous Coward]

europeans = enjoy privacy
americans = enjoy being raped by corporations

hope i cleared that one up.

Re:Gmail - Opt-In

[rkww]

If there were somebody in your state offering an illegal service would you be surprised if people objected - regardless of how stupid /you/ might perceive the law to be?

How can this be illegal?

[Nerd With Nalgene]

Unfriendly, sure.
Annoying, sure.
Even worth boycotting the service, if you're paranoid like that.
But by no stretch of the imagination is this an infringement of anyone's rights--that would require that it not be a choice.

It's not like they hide this fact

[kcornia]

What's to complain about? They're up front about it when you sign up for the service, if you don't like, don't use.

But either way, quit yer bitchin'!

Can I file a complaint against MS now?

[jamonterrell]

Since by the same measure, Microsoft can track a user by the personal information given through the passport/hotmail registration procedure through every website you visit using THEIR browser, every program you run on THEIR operating system, every document you read/write with THEIR office application.
Innocent until proven guilty. When they start using this for an invasion of privacy, then you can complain, at this point they haven't even offered the service, how can you complain that they've invaded your privacy.

Besides, if you don't like it, don't create an account and go back to wearing your tinfoil hat. They aren't using strongarm tactics to force you to use their product.

Jamon.

Oh For The Love Of God

[Talez]

If you don't the terms and conditions go with another mail provider.

But I suppose when Google is the only mail provider providing a gig of space, it's no wonder why privacy advocates are jumping up and down.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Google is a private company. They own the servers and the bandwidth. These privacy advocates can go jump as far as I'm concerned.

Ironically

[captnitro]

Posted on Yahoo! news.

Why shouldn't google be able to link data?

[Chris_Jefferson]

I'm still not entirely sure what everyone's complaint is here. You don't have to join Gmail to use google. They openly admit that they may combine data (unlike everyone else who do combine data but refuse to tell anyone about it)

If you don't want google using your data, don't give it to them. Personally, I'm happy for google to have all my data if it will improve my browsing and emailing experience, and that is my personal choice to make.

What people should be complaining about is insurance and credit card companies which buy incomplete and incorrect sets of data and judge your credit rating based on it (it's happened to me). Now thats dodgy.

Re:Why shouldn't google be able to link data?

[destine]

The complaint isn't actually one of email retention exclusively. It's putting email retnetion together with your search and surfing habits. And possibly, in the future, selling your profile to the highest bidder or just letting the government have all of your information easily at their fingertips. It's the first step to Big Brother. We have laws against this kind of thing already for purposes of privacy which is a human right and for lack of responsibility in others.

It's more about having too much information in one area for me. I see this kind of thing and I think, no thanks. Suddenly, your tongue in cheek comments could be taken more seriously by people who you don't know and don't know you. Or you trust a friend to watch your house for the weekend and he downloads craploads of kiddie porn he found on google. Meanwhile it was your cookie and your email. Too much power in one place is a bad deal and that's kind of what we have here. A method of putting your real correspondence to what you do on a daily basis. If you make the wrong mistake, you could be branded for it(And might not even know about it until it's too late.)

Chances are, you won't know when the government is looking at your profile. I'm not really the type to go all tinfoil hat or anything, but you have to admit that the potential for abuse is extremely high.

Too much info in one place for me, thank you.

Re:Why shouldn't google be able to link data?

[Bandman]

and the government could sell our SSN's to the highest bidder to bring down the debt.

It's at least as likely. Look at the track record of Google versus the track record of the Govt. Which one would you rather play poker with?

Microsoft Exchange?

[Wingchild]

"Residual copies of email may remain on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of your account," Google's Gmail says in its privacy and terms of use sections.

snip

"If a person deletes an email, he should be confident that email is actually deleted," said Maurice Westerling, co-founder of Bits of Freedom, another privacy interest group, based in the Netherlands.

MS Exchange has settings for the email retention period. If you delete something from your mailbox in Outlook, then empty your Trash folder, it's effectively gone from your view and you've no way to retrieve it. It is however stored in Exchange for as long as the administrators wish to hang onto it (and that "deleted" email is, indeed, backed up and restorable).

If you shift-delete an object out of your Inbox, using that wonderful permanent-kill technique that the tech-savvy thinks protects and anonymizes their email... it's stored for the email retention period listed by the sysadmins, is backed up, and is restorable. It looks very dead to /you/, but not to /us/.

(fyi, the only real way around this is to edit your Outlook client so that you can get the Recover Deleted Items option on every object in your inbox [as opposed to just the Recycle Bin], then habitually view -- and purge -- that information on a schedule that is more frequent than the one used for our backups. That'd work.)

Anyway, the shorter point is, this kind of thing happens. The reason is happens is liability. If a criminal organization is using Google's GMail system for planning a robbery, or if a terrorist group decides they want to attack rail systems in Europe and wants to do so by using random public terminals to sign into email accounts that someone else hosts, it's a problem. If law enforcement comes looking and Google has to say "Oh, sorry - we respect privacy so much that we absolutely and permanently delete all traces of all email the second you touch the delete object!", it will not be a pleasant thing. The investigators will not be happy.

Alternate question; do you really think that your email is permanently gone from Yahoo! and Hotmail?

Do you really think they can't restore to an arbitrary point in time?

Do you think they wouldn't turn that info over to law enforcement in a heartbeat if a court order came down? :)

Are the rules /that/ different in Europe?

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[Rick Zeman]

Anyway, the shorter point is, this kind of thing happens. The reason is happens is liability. If a criminal organization is using Google's GMail system for planning a robbery, or if a terrorist group decides they want to attack rail systems in Europe and wants to do so by using random public terminals to sign into email accounts that someone else hosts, it's a problem. If law enforcement comes looking and Google has to say "Oh, sorry - we respect privacy so much that we absolutely and permanently delete all traces of all email the second you touch the delete object!", it will not be a pleasant thing. The investigators will not be happy.

That's an interesting point. They might not be happy, but so? Does anyone have a legal (vs. moral) obligation to retain every piece of data Just In Case There's A Terrorist Hiding Under The Bed? Same with corporations. There's no law saying you need to have an email retention period of x, right? Companies do it for business reasons, not because it's mandatory (and in many cases [hello, Microsoft] it's come back to bite them in the ass).

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[sgtron]

"Do you think they wouldn't turn that info over to law enforcement in a heartbeat if a court order came down? :)"

Do you think it would even take a court order? Hello Patriot Act...

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[dave420]

The real reason they're keeping the data is the way google's distributed file system works.

It uses 64mb-chunks of disk space, and instead of erasing data from within the chunk, it just flags it as deleted, thereby not fragmenting the filesystem fantastically. That method means it's practically impossible to delete the email.

It has to be kept on their filesystem as the inbox is searchable, and 1gb large - raid arrays just wouldn't cope with that stress (and it'd take 3 days to search your mail). The filesystem is the real genius of google - their system is made of hundreds of terabytes of storage on a distributed system. Thousands of servers running redundantly. When one dies (with that many it's a regular occurance) it gets swapped out seamlessly. The processing on the data also requires huge bandwidth throughput.

To me, it looks like the google boys found a great use for their systems, but the very methods that make them great contradict local law in some areas they're selling in.

Oh, and the rules are that different in europe ;)

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[duffbeer703]

That argument is bunk.

With a system like that, you could implement a system where "deleted" chunks get purged or overwritten on some semi-regular basis.

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can write the file in the first place, it should not be too hard to overwrite the file with 0's or random bits once is needs to be deleted. Whether the space is 'marked' as allocated or not doesn't matter.

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[DiscoOnTheSide]

not quite, because, as he said, the filesystem isn't really that keen on deletion of said chunks. Ok, and if you DO purge/overwrite it... the amount of reindexing and (I would imagine) cluster propogation would be highly counter-intuitive. Similar to Slashdot, as when there's a new story that drops you dont see ALL the comments ever made, just the ones that have propogated to the server you happen to be on.

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[Anonymous Coward]

fyi, the only real way around this is to edit your Outlook client ... That'd work.)

What if you have a client side rule (client always running) that immediately moves personal email to your .pst (Personal Folders) so that it's only in the inbox for a split second? Then delete from the .pst.

Would that work for all email the rule catches?

Thanks very much by the way. This is quite useful.

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[HidingMyName]

The real reason they're keeping the data is the way google's distributed file system work

That argument is bunk.

With a system like that, you could implement a system where "deleted" chunks get purged or overwritten on some semi-regular basis.

It is possible that the grand parent poster did not get the motivation for making the users agree to allow google to maintain the data correct. However, his assertion that backups, checkpointing, caching and distributed storage cause privacy concerns is accurate, and it is a hard problem.

HIPAA (U.S. law which includes penalties for disclosing confidential health information)and other regulations have caused serious concerns in the database and data mining research community (contrary to popular opinion not all data miners want to strip you of your privacy). Rakesh Agrawal, Jerry Kiernan and Ramakrishnan Srikant (major data base researchers, Srikant and Agrawal made groundbreaking contributions to the field of data mining) published recently (well about 2 years ago or so) on Hippocratic Databases (in gzipped PostScript), where he describes the hard problem of making the database forget information to conform to legal and ethical restrictions.

Re:Microsoft Exchange?

[tutwabee]

If Google is doing this to avoid fragmentation then this will speed up their service and is a great idea. However, I think there is a better way to keep their drives defragmented and still retain a level of data security on the user's end.

When the user requests for a message to be deleted Google should promise to overwrite that message or zero out the portion of data that the message takes up within a day or a week. This would give the user reassurance of data security while keeping Google's drives perfectly defragmented all the time.

If you dont like it...

[Adam Snow]

If you dont like it, dont use it. My $0.02

Read it.

[mystery_bowler]

Here is the privacy policy.

I didn't see anything in there about this particular topic, although there is a bit about the fact that they will be using cookies (natch).

Personally, I find it hard to be too concerned about this. My web-surfing patterns are already recorded in a "soft" way via my browser history and a much "harder" way via my ISP's access logs. I can go out of my way to use proxies and make it difficult to trace, etc, but it isn't like you can't figure out what my machine is doing (unless I'm doing some fairly advanced stuff).

The man on the street

[benjiboo]

The thing is, the average user is happy to trade their privacy for a service useful to them. Here in the UK for instance, most people are happy to use supermarket loyalty cards that provdes this kind of tracking data to companies for mining and targetted advertising.

It could be argued that this kind of data represents partial payment for the service. It's obviously very valuable as the companies are glad to offer certain cash-back offers in the form of rewards for it.

Off the top of my head, I also can't think of an argument against this IF you have nothing to hide in your online activities. I'm sure there is one, but again, the average law abiding user wouldn't be so concerned about this as the slashdot crowd.

Americans, wake up!

[Infonaut]

This is about European Union privacy laws, which are different than those in the United States. It says so multiple times, quite clearly in the article.

Re:Americans, wake up!

[Skye16]

Then Google has a pretty easy solution: don't offer it to the Europeans. If the EU is that concerned about it, then that's fine, it's their right, but Google doesn't HAVE to offer it to you. They probably won't lose any money on it, considering how much they'd end up 'losing' if they COULDN'T target their ads towards you.

(By 'losing' I mean "theoretically could have made but didn't". I'm sure there's a proper term for it, but I haven't the slightest idea as to what that may be.

Re:Americans, wake up!

[Anonymous Coward]

EU: great protector of individual privacy?

I think I just pissed my pants from laughing so hard.

Re:Americans, wake up!

[Anonymous Coward]

The only difference between the EU and the US is that here in the EU, we have the right to ask if someone has violated our privacy.

Re:Americans, wake up!

[Neil]

By 'losing' I mean "theoretically could have made but didn't". I'm sure there's a proper term for it, but I haven't the slightest idea as to what that may be.

If you want to be fancy about it, an economist would use the term "opportunity cost".

Re:Americans, wake up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did I miss something? The parent didn't say anything about the EU being a great protector of privacy. They just pointed out that so many posters are responding as if it were a matter of American law, when it isn't.

*sigh*

[broothal]

I read the article - what did it say after "blah blah blah blah"?

Don't Like it, Don't Use It

[Mantrid]

Nothing to see here. No reason for any commission or anything. As long as everything is up front from the get go you can choose to use this service or not.

Re:Don't Like it, Don't Use It

[blane.bramble]

As has been stated elsewhere, this isn't about whether or not Google's policies state what they are doing, it is about whether such a policy breaks European privacy laws. Would you let a European company offer a service in the US that was illegal, as long as it wasn't compulsory to use it?

One rule for some...

[plumby]

It seems like most of the comments so far are along the lines "it's voluntary, google should be allowed to do what they want."

It would be interesting to see the reaction on /. if this had been a Microsoft service.

Re:One rule for some...

[System.out.println()]

If this had been a Microsoft service, it would be (crappily) integrated into the OS and locked out from any other competitors.

Re:One rule for some...

[benjiboo]

Well said!

MS Sez Hailstorm To Play Nice With Others

Hailstorm: Open Web Services Controlled by Microsoft

MS Passport: "All Your Bits Are Belong To Us"

Re:One rule for some...

[AlecC]

It would be interesting to see the reaction on /. if this had been a Microsoft service.

I don't think most people would have a problem, as long as it was not useable only from Windows, or only with MSIE, or other lock-in strategy.

Hotmail doesn't work with Opera: I wonder why. Accidental "We cannot possible test with every browser"? Or deliberate "We don't want to encourage browsers other than ours"? Or between "Opera compatability is bottom of the list"? It looks to me as if M$ is trying to use Hotmail as a lever against any competitor. If Google shows a sniff of such an attude, I will criticise it - but not till then.

Re:One rule for some...

[Tin Foil Hat]

You mean like Hotmail's IMAP system?

Re:One rule for some...

[System.out.println()]

Eh, I wouldn't know, really. Haven't used Hotmail in years.

Re:One rule for some...

[Tin Foil Hat]

Heh, can't say as I blame you. Hotmail has a bastardized IMAP interface that can only be accessed via Outlook Express. Lots of people use it, too.

Re:One rule for some...

[Anonymous Coward]

If this had been a Microsoft service, it would be (crappily) integrated into the OS and locked out from any other competitors.

Looks like you answered grandparents post for them.

Privacy policy is here

[PhuckH34D]

The privacy policy of Spymac is here for people that don't trust it yet :)

btw. I tried to sign up, but they send an email to you with a link to activate your account, but I still didnt get the mail (its been 6 hours)...

Re:Privacy policy is here

[scrm]

btw. I tried to sign up, but they send an email to you with a link to activate your account, but I still didnt get the mail (its been 6 hours)...

This happened as soon as I had to submit my reg form:

Warning: mail(): Could not execute mail delivery program '/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i ' in /var/www/www.spymac.com/classes/global_class.inc on line 617

So it would seem registrations aren't really working on their end. Sorry but I wouldn't say SpyMac isn't looking like a viable alternative to something Google can put out (yet)...

Re:Privacy policy is here

[Slynkie]

Seems to be working now, I got the email a few minutes after registering, and I just logged in for the first time, successfully.

Data Protection Act

[Aardpig]

Look, they aren't charging for the service, nor are they forcing you to use it.

Whether its free or not is irrelevant. In the UK, there is legislation (the so-called Data Protection Act ) which places tight constraints on how personal data is archived and managed. If the Google mail service falls foul of this act, then it does not matter whether or not the service is free; it is still breaking the law.

Re:Data Protection Act

[AlecC]

But the DPA prevents usage of personal information for purposes other than that for which it was collected. If anybody explains why they are collecting information about you, and receives your OK to do so (opt-in, not opt-out), it does not seem to me that they are breaking the DPA. Google is very open. If they put all this clearly (as they do) in their Terms and Conditions, and then keep to their word, I don't see that the DPA being involved.

Re:Data Protection Act

[lucas teh geek]

whether or not the service is free; it is still breaking the law.

why is everyone so ignorant about the law. the americans constantly believe that their law is THE law. lots of people in the UK seem to do it too. their is no single set of laws that holds world-wide. By kicking up a fuss all this group can really do is make google not offer the service to the UK. yay for freedom!

Re:Data Protection Act

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't opt-in to any terms and conditions when I used Google's search capability. So therefore, by your argument, they are not allowed to use the data of my search terms for anything else - for example, they are not allowed to link them to my email.

Re:Data Protection Act

[Anonymous Coward]

"why is everyone so ignorant about the law. the americans constantly believe that their law is THE law. lots of people in the UK seem to do it too."

Dumbass. The article and grandparent poster said it applies to the UK only. Fucking wanker.

Re:Data Protection Act

[AlecC]

No - and they should not use your search terms until you have explictly agreed. This you would have to do when you accepted the GMail terms and conditions. They don't have to keep the two services chinese-walled: accepting GMail would mean accepting a whole package governing your relationship with Google. But, until you have accepted that, I agrre that your search terms should be private.

Re:Data Protection Act

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately when Amazon fell foul of the DPA, nothing got done about it.

Not that simple

[GreenCrackBaby]

The article is very clear: privacy groups aren't just arguing that Google is violating privacy, they are arguing that Google is violating the law (by violating privacy).

It seems that European privacy law is much more strict than US law, and by retaining a subscriber's email even after they have deleted it or cancelled their account Google is breaking those laws.

Huge difference.

Re:Not that simple

[jaaron]

It seems that European privacy law is much more strict than US law, and by retaining a subscriber's email even after they have deleted it or cancelled their account Google is breaking those laws.

Cool. Looks like the rest of us won't have to compete with all the Europeans for cool gmail addresses. :)

Another option is that gmail just won't be available in Europe.

Re:Not that simple

[Chris_Jefferson]

It would be interesting to see if they are simply the first people to admit this.

Do you think AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo! mail and every other ISP in the world dig through their backups when you quit and make sure they delete all copies of your mail? I'd be very, very, very surprised if they do.

Re:Not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell yeah, check out Yahoo's web beacon tech http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/pixels/details .html. It's not a data retention thing, but it seems far more evil than targetted ads. And is opnely admitted for use in profile building.

Re:Not that simple

[Simon Lyngshede]

I would be suprised if Hotmail even have backups. Anyhow other laws apply to ISPs, at least in Denmark, they have to retain emails for up to five years, for potential criminal investigation. At least I think that law was passed, but Im not sure.

Re:Not that simple

[0x0d0a]

It kind of sucks to be a US-based company and have people complaining that you're breaking, say, Mongolian law, though.

Re:Not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're operating in Mongolia, you'll have to comply with Mongolian law.

Re:Not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is the case, the solution would be to block all IP's with restrictive privacy laws from using gmail and saying they aren't allowed to use it otherwise.

Google's system works on redundancy. That's the only way they can do their thing.

I guess if this is a real snafu the answer is that the Google technology is unsuited for things like email. A blow to google, but personally I'm not interested in gmail anyway.

I would like to see some proof that the datamining algorithm Google uses to parse emails for adwords guarantees anonyminity. I'm pretty sure completely safe datamining is not a reality right now, but it is proven to be theoretically possible. Do people datamine without giving a care about privacy? Oh yeah they do. Should Google do the same just because everyone else does it? I would like to think they shouldn't. They have the ability to make an anonymous algorithm, if they haven't done it the time is just not right to start mining emails.

Re:Not that simple

[cayenne8]

"at least in Denmark, they have to retain emails for up to five years, for potential criminal investigation. At least I think that law was passed, but Im not sure."

Here's a simple idea that has worked for me. Set up your own email server. You can maintain your own limits as to storage size, and retention times.

Not that hard to do...not that expensive. And you can share this with your friends if you want, or they need it...heck, set up a nym server, really give people privacy.

Re:Not that simple

[cayenne8]

"If this is the case, the solution would be to block all IP's with restrictive privacy laws from using gmail and saying they aren't allowed to use it otherwise."

Why put it on the company to do this? I mean, in the US, it is illegal to gamble online for the most part. Many of the online casinos are not in the US, and therefore, can operate just as they wish, since it is legal in their territory. But, if a US citizen gets caught using this service which breaks US law...he can be prosecuted.

Therefore, why not just prosecute the Europeans that get caught using a service that is against their own laws. It just seems the burden should be put on the individuals, not the company.

For the record, I'd not use gmail due to privacy issues, and I with they'd legalized online gambling. But, I gotta come down on the side that there should be more personal responsibility....not have the responsibility on the company doing legal business where they are located.

Re:Not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

> by retaining a subscriber's email even after they have deleted it or cancelled their account Google is breaking those laws.

The irony is that this is probably just a caching issue, and no one would have noticed or cared if Google hadn't been so honest about it...

Think about it: things that get "deleted" on HDs don't actually get deleted until you overwrite that sector; why is this such a concern? If anything, I'm more inclined to trust them since they're so forthcoming...

Re:Not that simple

[Tony Hoyle]

Presumably you haven't read the "Declaration on Combating Terrorism" that the EU member states ratified without any fanfare (or public consultation) a week or so ago.

It makes the US Patriot act look like a walk in the park. gmail is just a distraction.. whilst we're bickering over that our 'privacy' is lost anyway.

One of its measures is the *mandatory* retention of all communications data within europe (inc. email, phone calls, mobile phone calls, faxes and internet usage). No idea how they're going to do that... it'll require a damn big SCSI disk :)

Add to that the compulsory fingerprinting of everyone in Europe, the introduction of biometric passports, tracking all travel in, out and within Europe and retaining this data, oh and the government gets automatic right to inspect your back accounts too...

http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/mar/swscoreb oa rd.pdf

Re:Not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're operating in Mongolia, you'll have to comply with Mongolian law.

So if my porn site is accessible to users in Iran, I should behead myself now to save them the trouble?

Re:Not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Why put it on the company to do this? I mean, in the US, it is illegal to gamble online for the most part. Many of the online casinos are not in the US, and therefore, can operate just as they wish, since it is legal in their territory. But, if a US citizen gets caught using this service which breaks US law...he can be prosecuted.

Therefore, why not just prosecute the Europeans that get caught using a service that is against their own laws. It just seems the burden should be put on the individuals, not the company.

Your analogy is flawed.

Um, the difference is that it's illegal to gamble, as well as to run a gambling site. It's not illegal in Europe to have your emails stored after your account has been deleted.

Punishing European users of GMail would therefore be punishing the victims of the crime. I don't think they even did that in Soviet Russia.

Re:Not that simple

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for an ISP that allowed a third party to put traffic sniffers on the dial up pools, and provided them with a way of linking the traffic on each line to the customer who was dialed up. Apparently it was legal because we didn't actually allow the company to have the names of customers, but rather only their mailing address. Ostensibly so the third party could target junk mail to the customer's address based on their surfing habits, but the information could be used in anyway they wanted. If you think you are safe from snooping just because you are paying for a service, you aren't. The ISP I mentioned never informed its customers of this "service" in any way. It was done completely without thier knowledge or consent.

Re:Not that simple

[I(rispee_I(reme]

Can you recommend a good mail server?

Re:Not that simple

[cayenne8]

"Can you recommend a good mail server?"

I've been using Postfix www.postfix.org as mine. I just recently put Gentoo on a Sun box I got off eBay to dedicate as my email server. Here are some links to some info I used:

Virtual Mailhosting with Postfix

Email system for the home Network

And I found many of the links from www.postfix.org useful. I also went and bought the Postfix book from O'Reilly, and man, did that help!! It gives good explanations on how things all work....and it provided the glue between all the online materials I used. I'd highly recommend it. The home setup is much easier, but, I went for the virtual hosting system this time, not only to be more 'industrial' but, for the learning process.

HTH

Re:Not that simple

[PReDiToR]

Thats all well and good but what happens when all those stupid ISPs decide that anyone on a home IP block is a spammer the way AOL did?

Running your own email server isn't the be all and end all of privacy, you still have to use your ISP for those poor unfortunate souls that haven't gotten off AOL yet.

Re:Not that simple

[cayenne8]

Well, I still tend to recommend to friends that:

"Friends don't let friends join AOL"

:-)

Seriously, I've not run into any problems with anyone bouncing my emails. I made sure and set up a valid MX record for my domain name...try my best to ensure no open relay. And so far, so good...no problems.

But, of course, there is no "be all, end all" of privacy, only steps one can take. So, my recommendation was, if you don't like your ISP or other form of email server you use storing your emails, going through them..etc. This is one viable and easy option to start addressing these concerns...

And, if you're hosting/using chains of anonymous email remailers and nym servers, you can raise your privacy dramatically.

Re:Not that simple

[antic]

It's recently been admitted by the largest service providers in the mobile/cell phone industry that even if you delete your SMS/Text messages, the telcos retain the data for a period. Telstra holds your messages for 28 days, and Optus holds them for 3 days.

There is a murder case running in Queensland where messages (thought to have been deleted by the accused) are being used as evidence of planning the incident.

Re:Not that simple

[Trejkaz]

But are they violating privacy? They're sharing a cookie between (a) a site run by Google, and (b) a site run by Google.

You might as well say that www.ebay.com is violating your privacy by sharing cookies with cgi.ebay.com.

Re:Not that simple

[__aawavt7683]

Now... I'd say that _all_ e-mail services keep users' e-mail. Think backups. Think of how e-mail has been kept at corporations for _years_ and come back to haunt people. Is this not done in any way with commercial e-mail accounts? is the outgoing mail not recorded, for law enforcement purposes? is the e-mail people received not backed up for a considerable time? This privacy stuff seems _way_ overblown to me, and it seems like what google's planning on doing is already being done everywhere else. It's just that they're telling you about it.

As for keeping the mail forever, I can't say I know what they're going to do with it, but I highly doubt anyone else would be able to access your e-mail. Perhaps there would be something between data mining and selling advertising, but I don't know about this either. Perhaps they're simply removing references to it; the filesystem, being as large as it seems like it will be, may not have the capability to even delete data. It may just contiguously allocate everything and never look back.

My big thing is that e-mail is already stored for a _long time_. Is this not the case with the likes of Hotmail, Yahoo, etc?

-DrkShadow

Nice

[jayhawk88]

Did someone just graduate from assertiveness training or something? Perhaps next time you ought to actually wait until the product is released until you go throwing a shit-fit about it.

Um, what's the point?

[DroopyStonx]

Call me crazy, but I don't see the point in using an email service where you CAN'T DELETE your emails. WTF?

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.

Re:Um, what's the point?

[dave420]

You can delete them, but they're not "deleted". Also, with 1gb of space, there's no need to delete them. Just flag them as deleted, and if you use up your 1gb, the oldest "deleted" mails get pushed out.

As the google file system doesn't actually delete the data off the disks when it's "erased", it'll still exist. I think that's the real perceived problem (even though it's a tiny one, in actual fact)

Re:Um, what's the point?

[LiquidCoooled]

isnt this EXACTLY the same as deleting a file from your desktop?

Doesnt the operating system simply remove its header from the link chain (or whatever fancy filesystem scheme is in place).

I'm sure the general slashdot crowd wouldn't have too much trouble recovering deleted data from a drive.

This whole google privacy issue feels like a jealous smear campaign by the other major mail providers - who are just as susceptable to the same issues.

Re:Um, what's the point?

[dave420]

It's not exactly the same. When you delete a file on your computer, the block can be (and usually is) written over again. That does not happen on the google system - that's the whole point of it. It keeps everything in order, and jumps over stuff that's deemed "deleted".

I'm pretty sure most, if not all of the /. crowd would have trouble recovering a deleted file, if it's been overwritten ;)

There are legitimate privacy concerns from this technology, but I feel they've been blown out of all proportion by people not understanding the technology. If anyone's read about the google filesystem, they'll know why this is happening. If you haven't, you'd probably jump to all sorts of crazy tin-hat-related conclusions.

Don't Worry..

[handmedowns]

no one from the slashdot crew is even interesting enough to "spy" on..

I think these guys have watched Enemy of the State / Anti-Trust too many times.

Fighting initial reactions...

[Valejo]

When I first heard about the privacy concerns involved in the Gmail project, my initial reaction was to trust Google no matter what to "Do no evil." However, perhaps we should put aside our love for the company and ask critically whether this breeches acceptable advertising practices. For me, I'm uneasy with the idea of saving "deleted" mail.

Re:Fighting initial reactions...

[William Tanksley]

The saving "deleted" mail is part of Google's filesystem, not part of its advertising policy. It's also technically required for any redundant distributed system -- it's not possible to delete things immediately without incurring HUGE overhead.

However, if it were part of its advertising policy, I'm curious -- why would you care?

-Billy

Use two cookies

[1u3hr]

If the fear is of linkage between email, which gives the identity of the user, along with searching behaviour, then just use different cookies. Presumably there will be a new domain, Gmail.com, rather than the current subdomain off Google.com, which will make keeping the cookies separate trivial.

Also, the statements that mail may not be deleted is probably just a legal disclaimer in case it's not deleted immediately. What would be the point of keeping it -- it's just a legal timebomb to keep it around. But perhaps it's because they intend to separate spam and just keep one copy of each unique message, and give you a pointer to the Viagra ad, kiddie porn site, etc if you really do want to read your spam; in which case they might delete your link but not the actual message.

Re:Use two cookies

[Anonymous Coward]

They already have gmail.com.

Re:Use two cookies

[dave420]

They keep the email because the google filesystem doesn't delete data. It has 64mb chunks on a linux filesystem, and if data in one of those chunks is "deleted", it's marked as deleted, much the same way as a FAT, except chunks aren't overwritten. That keeps a contiguous filesystem in tact, and allows for great scalability. apparently. :)

Hehe

[Fullmetal Edward]

Watch out world, your search engine is watching you... Just wait, we'll have microchips in money and our cars next..

Privacy Groups

[Fortress]

Any one else think it's odd that a privacy group is complaing about a service that isn't available to the public yet? I'm all for privacy, but let's pick the reasonable battles. It will be repeated ad nauseum here, but you don't HAVE to sign up for Gmail.

I would much rather that privacy groups spend their finite resources fighting the stuff we don't have the option of avoiding, Big Government and such.

Seems like any other organization, privacy groups have to justify their existence by creating problems where none exist.

Re:Privacy Groups

[The Angry Mick]

complaing about a service that isn't available to the public yet

I think I'd rather have somebody talking about privacy issues before they became practice, than after the fact.

Re:Privacy Groups

[Anonymous Coward]

And when you have to email gmail accounts? E.g. your manager set one up for himself and expects you to use it?

Knee Jerk reaction

[AlecC]

This seems to me to be very much a knee-jerk reaction. Provided that Google is up-fromt will all this, why shouldn't I be given the opportunity to opt-in to such a service? I entirely agree that this should not be done secretly - but Google is very upfront. Surely it is not an invasion of privacy if I explicitly accept that Google will scan my mail as part of paying for the service.

I like Google Adwords. Given that advertising is an endemic part of life, and is not going to go away, Adwords is the way I want it. Let Google take all the advertising revenue with Adwords, and may the popup merchants go broke. If Google want to offer a paid-for non-Adwords service, I shall think about it - and probably not buy it.

As to keeping some of your email when you delete it - I don't think this is intentional. AFAICS Google has a "weak delete" policy - they try to recover deleted space, but if they don't recover it all, too bad - disks are cheap. So there may well be old copies of your emails hanging round. What the hell - they are not indexed, so it will take a deep search to find it. Do Yahoo, Hotmail & Co guarantee a destructive overwrite when they delete your mail? I doubt it - in which case they might have an old copy lying round on their disks.

So, privacy people, don't spoil what looks like it might (subject to confirmation, of course) be a useful, opt-in service because of arcane potential privacy problems.

Re:Knee Jerk reaction

[admbws]

On subject of deletion, I was thinking a similar thing myself.

The term in question is,

"Residual copies of email may remain on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of your account."

On most filesystems, deleted files are not deleted completely, they remain physically on disk and, provided the now-free space has not been subsequently overwritten, could potentially be retrieved with appropriate tools. This is what Google means by "residual copies", and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is the case with Yahoo!, Hotmail or any other free email provider, Google is just being honest about it! Good on you Google!

Re:Knee Jerk reaction

[ozric99]

This seems to me to be very much a knee-jerk reaction. Provided that Google is up-fromt will all this, why shouldn't I be given the opportunity to opt-in to such a service?

For the vesy same reason that you can't "opt in" to slavery. The service happens to fall foul of certain EU privacy laws.

Did anybody actually read the article? (yeah yeah "you must be new here" +5 Funny)

Re:Knee Jerk reaction

[AlecC]

Yes, I read the article. And it seems to me that none of the things that Google is proposing to do breach them if I give my informed consent in advance. I often give out personal information for a purpose and there is no bar the person I gave it to using it for the purpose I gave it.

You cant "opt-in" to slavery. But you can opt-in to employment, medical treatment, loans with repayment terms, all of which involve you exchanging some rights in return for some benefits. If the trade clear in advance, there is no harm in it.

What EU privacy laws are breached by people using information I have allowed them to collect for the purposes for which I allowed them to collect it. I think the claim by these people is simply wrong - privided that Google does what it says it will do.

Re:Knee Jerk reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

Provided that Google is up-fromt will all this, why shouldn't I be given the opportunity to opt-in to such a service? I entirely agree that this should not be done secretly - but Google is very upfront. Surely it is not an invasion of privacy if I explicitly accept that Google will scan my mail as part of paying for the service.

Imagine for a second that I am one of your buddies like Google is, in a way, to most /.'ers.

- Ok, here you have a license written by me (Google). It allows me to do a rectal exam on you when I feel like it, to look for.. umm.. cocaine. Oh yeah, here, have a lollipop (read: 1Gb, 9 months of idling etc.).

Privacy laws exist for a reason, If we start making exceptions then it will eventually cost us our freedom. Just because we have always seen Google as one of the "good guys" doesn't mean they are somehow uncapable of doing bad things (e.g. privacy violations). Are there privacy issues with GMail? Yeah, there appears to be.. Now, why are you people ignoring this? Is it because of that 1Gb of space? Or is it because your account can remain idle for 9 months without being erased? Or is it because you love google the search engine?

If we allow Google to read our mail we *also allow* the folks at Hotmail, Yahoo, Netscape, Excite.. you name it, to do the same thing and eventually we wont be able to do anything about it. Seriously, think about it. Most of the /. crowd are here, in this discussion, blindly proclaiming their faith and loyalty to an entity/person/group without even knowing why. What's wrong with this picture?

Ok, in all fairness, no one has to sign up but keep in mind that not all people will be aware of the caveats that come along with it. It's not like Google has a red neon sign on the front page saying "We are saving and reading your mail as we see fit". And when was the last time you heard Joe Sixpack discussing the Privacy Policy of some service? Bingo! That's right, he never reads it.

Re:Knee Jerk reaction

[ozric99]

As I understand the DPA, and I'm not a lawyer so I say this with my own added seasoning, when my relationship with another party (which holds personal data on or about me) ends, that party is obliged to remove said data from their records in compliance with the DPA. As I understand it, Google is unable to fulfil that responsibility, ergo they are in breach of the DPA.
The issue is not the action of collecting my personal data - that's a red herring. I've already displayed my willingness for Google to have such data by accepting their T&Cs and, more importantly, by my use of the service.

From gmail's T&Cs:
residual copies of email may remain on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of your account

This breaches point 5 of the 8 basic points of the act as outlined below:
1. Data should be processed fairly and lawfully.
2. Data should be obtained for one or more specified lawful purposes.
3. Data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive.
4. Data shall be accurate and where necessary kept up to date.
5. Data is not kept longer than is necessary for its purpose.
6. Data shall be processed in accordance with subject rights under the Act.
7. Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised/unlawful processing, loss, destruction, damage to personal data.
8. Data shall not be transferred outside EEA unless that country/territory ensures adequate level of protection for rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data.

Re:Knee Jerk reaction

[smallfries]

I'm glad to see that someone around here is talking some sense instead of following the slashdot mindset. I also like adwords, when I actually want to buy something they're pretty damn useful and accurate - when I don't they're pretty much invisible. Everyone complains about being saturated with advertising, well here is a company getting slammed for doing it properly.

The main complain in the article seemed to be about the service reading your email to perform the adword scan. For all the naysayers out there who are agreeing with it, answer me one question:

How is a webmail service going to show me my email without reading it?

Also, aren't google fulfilling the DPA by flagging the data as deleted? That's how most operating systems do it and no-one is complaining that any business using linux/windows is breaching the law because they don't take a magnet to the harddrive when you finish doing business with them.

Re:What's there to complain about?

[Xeo 024]

Hate to reply to my own post, but SpyMac is also in the same market as google, as far as e-mail goes. They're offering 1 GB of e-mail with no 'context-sensitive' advertising all for free.

I know

[nickol]

Every day I'm sending them about 30 emails
in spam report. The same spam keeps coming
again and again.

Well, even if they wanted... They'd have to
hire at least the whole population of China.
Or invent a REAL artificial intelligence, which
itself has more value than all our Yahoo mails.

Re:Do it yourself

[Skye16]

Used them before. They weren't bad, but the server died around 5 times a day - if not more.

Every service "reads" your mail

[rjstanford]

I mean, think about it. Let's say that you have webmail with one of the other major providers. Somebody sends you mail. You reply. They reply. Now your email has a couple of levels of ">" in it. Wouldn't it be nice if they highlighted those in different colors or something?

Oh, wait - they already do that? (Note: at least, this was common the last time I bothered with webmail which was some time ago). Guess what - that's "reading" your mail as well. In fact, they're just changing your display - without changing the verbal contact of your message - to make it more convenient for you.

Isn't that also a (reaching, but legitimate) description of providing targetted advertising? I mean, how many times have people here on /. said about ads that if they made sense, they wouldn't mind 'em? Guess what - that's targetting. And how they're supposed to make sense and be timely without some kind of processing is beyond me.

As for the article's complaint, it seems to focus around the fact that when you "delete" an email, Google doesn't guarantee that it goes away immediately. Their message seems to be talking about cache updates though - if they were willing to amend it with a service guarantee that within xx hours your email would be deleted, that would probably do the trick. Of course, then people would be arguing that they needed to provide complete file-trashing (triple overwrite, etc) as well, even though your regular email client and ISPs email account probably don't do that.

I think its just a case of being too cautious in their terms of use. In this case, being too honest where the other major providers are being "honest enough," and not worrying about caches, et cetera. Of course, they may be planning to use your old email for nefarious purposes, but somehow I doubt it. Either way, they should clarify their statement.

Re:Every service "reads" your mail

[skidde]

Exactly. What about all the complaints against spam? I'm sure these are some of the same people complaining about how spam infiltrates their inboxes every day. And I can't believe that they're also against spam filters because they not only "read" your e-mail, but look for and take note of key features of the message, i.e. content. What a horrible violation of privacy.

Re:Every service "reads" your mail

[Anonymous Coward]

Now your email has a couple of levels of ">" in it. Wouldn't it be nice if they highlighted those in different colors or something?

Oh, wait - they already do that? (Note: at least, this was common the last time I bothered with webmail which was some time ago). Guess what - that's "reading" your mail as well.


But that's often done with client-side javascript. The adword mechanism that Google will employ is located on their server farm. Hence it is more worrying.

Re:Every service "reads" your mail

[mdfst13]

"if they were willing to amend it with a service guarantee that within xx hours your email would be deleted"

I'm not sure that they can make that promise. The Google method seems wasteful, but it is simply based on the idea that it is cheaper to buy a new hard drive than to fix the one that you have. Basically, they will make a good faith effort to retrieve the disk space (overwriting the email). If that doesn't work, they just delete the index and leave the email there. If they need more space, they add a new file server (with new hard drives).

I read a while ago that Google's server farms have "dead" servers in them. They don't bother to remove them, because with their system, it is more difficult to *find* the dead server and get to it than it is to buy a new server rack.

If the dead server is your email server, AFAIK, it could be sitting there with your email on the hard drive (assuming it was something else that went) for months/years.

MTA message size

[Metroid72]

I wonder how much will be the restriction on the size of files that you can send in and out of your @gmail address.

Sending myself 500MB of MP3 files to have on the road comes to mind.

Re:MTA message size

[Anonymous Coward]

> Sending myself 500MB of MP3 files to have on the road comes to mind.

Buy an iPod, tightwad.

Re:MTA message size

[Metroid72]

You can't check out files from your Ipod to a different PC (without hacking involved). Besides...

Gmail == Free
Ipod == $250

>

Re:MTA message size

[kegger64]

The GMail TOS indicates that 10 MB is the message size limit.

Re:MTA message size

[Isaac-Lew]

Sending myself 500MB of MP3 files to have on the road comes to mind.

Wouldn't it make more sense to burn them on a CD-R? That way you get 600-700 MB, and there are dashboard & personal CD players that can read mp3 CDs.

"Privacy groups in the UK"...

[whathappenedtomonday]

... will eventually file for bankruptcy, once they discover hotmail / MS Passport and the endless privacy invasion possibilities these offer to M$ ... complaining about google seems slightly disproportionate ...

Email is not private

[lordbios]

Email in its basic form is not, nor has never been, private. There have never been any promises that email was private. I remember from the first time I used email that it was always likened to mailing stuff on a postcard, not in a sealed envelope. It's also not like Google is trying to hide the fact that they are scanning your emails. It is right out in the open in the terms of agreement. If you don't agree, don't sign up...

Re:Email is not private

[Peden]

Well sure, but thats not how it works in every country. In America you might be able to sign up for a taking-away-of-rights, but thats not how it works everywhere.

PGP anyone?

[jim_deane]

If you're concerned about privacy in your emails, why not use encryption?

The freeware PGP-type solutions are reasonably secure and quite simple to use.

Jim

Re:PGP anyone?

[1u3hr]

If you're concerned about privacy in your emails, why not use encryption? The freeware PGP-type solutions are reasonably secure and quite simple to use.

I got excited about this almost ten years ago. I installed PGP in my email client, made my keyring (or whatever it's called) and sent a few test messages to myself. After a couple of years in which time I never found anyone who even understood the idea, I gave up, never bothered to reinstall when I moved to a new PC.

Re:PGP anyone?

[andrew_j_w]

AFAIK no freely available webbased email service supports encryption.

I don't see any way that they could either since all the processing would be done at the server side, and so compromise the public/private key pair.

Obviously if Gmail supports POP/IMAP then PGP would be a good solution, though as they're relying on advertising I assume it's going to be entirely webbased.

Re:PGP anyone?

[STrinity]

A) Google says they want Gmail to eventually support POP3.

B)You can encrypt text even if it's not in a mail client.

Re:PGP anyone?

[andrew_j_w]

> A) Google says they want Gmail to eventually support POP3.
Ok, I did not know this.

> B)You can encrypt text even if it's not in a mail client.
True, but it would a considerable hassle to do it manually for each email you send - and to decode any messages you recieved.

Re:PGP anyone?

[Bitseeker]

That's exactly the problem on two fronts:

1. User's seem to think email is private. It's nothing more than an electronic postcard. Who in the general public thinks a postcard is private?
2. Why don't email clients have built-in PGP/GnuPG? It should be completely transparent to users and just work in order to get everyone to use it.

Re:PGP anyone?

[1u3hr]

Why don't email clients have built-in PGP/GnuPG?

There have been. For instance, there was a version of Eudora that came with PGP. There is the theory that the US govt (but also most others) have done everything they can to discourage cryptography in mainstream aplications, to make their spying on the public easier. There was the whole "cryptography as munitions" idiocy, for instance, so you have to click buttons stating "I am not a terrorist", "I don't live in North Korea" before downloading or installing crypto.

See PGP deep-freezed - NAI shrugs: "John Ashcroft has been drumming the beat recently, reminding the tech industry that a 'lucrative surveillance state' (in our Tom's words) can be built from the ashes of the September 11 attacks. This obviously doesn't extend to personal privacy software. Are we the only people who find the neglect of PGP somewhat fishy?"

excuse me?

[Vlion]

I don't feel like like getting my email data-mined.

Thats basically what Google wants to do with your email, if you havn't figured it out already.

And I'm not going to join the horde in Google adulation- Google seem to be quite happy to mine your data six ways from anywhere. I definatly don't want all of my email and searching centralized like that to a company that whilst is a techical genius, seems to have some moral issues regarding personal data and the use thereof.

I'm not going to have a gmail account until that policy gets changed. Go privacy group in UK !!!

Re:excuse me?

[Theaetetus]

I don't feel like like getting my email data-mined.
Thats basically what Google wants to do with your email, if you havn't figured it out already.
And I'm not going to join the horde in Google adulation- Google seem to be quite happy to mine your data six ways from anywhere. I definatly don't want all of my email and searching centralized like that to a company that whilst is a techical genius, seems to have some moral issues regarding personal data and the use thereof.

What moral issues? That they use an automated keyword search routine that trolls your mail so that they can provide targetted advertising, which you agree to ahead of time? They're not actually "reading" your email, any more than they're actually "reading" every page on the internet. They are also not selling your email to their advertisers - they're just making a link between you talking about "golf balls" in your email and an advertiser that purchased "golf balls" as a keyword. Does the advertiser know who you are? Nope. They don't get your email, they don't get to spam you silly. They know nothing about you, only that some user saw their ad.

So, maybe you're more concerned about their backups not getting deleted when you delete emails? Do you know any place that does that? Goes back through days, weeks, months of archives and deletes everything that someone has said "delete" to? Or, more usually, do they simply wait until it becomes time to reclaim that space, and then wipe it? There's nothing indicating that Google intends to use those archived and backed up versions of your email for years and years - all they're saying is that backups exist and they aren't going to run around erasing them all every time someone deletes an email.

I'm not going to have a gmail account until that policy gets changed. Go privacy group in UK !!!

Maybe you've heard of Yahoo, or MSN, or Hotmail, or AOL, or any one of thousands of other email providers? Feel free to use one of them. Why is this an issue that needs to be changed?

-T

Re:excuse me?

[/dev/trash]

No one is forcing you to sign up for GMail.

mod parent up...

[caino59]

worth a karma hit, as an interesting point is made.

Government wiretaps

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how long it is before google are happily releasing personal information under Patriot Act orders. I know they might have no choice in such a case, but why store information that could be used to oppress American citizens when such an order does happen?
Google need to get some sense in this tyrannical age.

moreover...

[moviepig.com]

The retiree who lives across my street is able to watch me leave my house each morning. She thus can chronolog my work-habits, mood, weight, fashion-sense, etc.

I've petitioned the town council to have her windows boarded up.

meh

[mastergoon]

if you are sending something so important you are afraid of google checking it against adwords, use your own server, or encrypt it.

You get what you pay for

[HarveyBirdman]

Am I the only one with ZERO sympathy when users of FREE services whine?

Re:You get what you pay for

[muxxa]

For people without access to credit cards, (such as the vast majority in developing countries who might only have web access through internet cafes), even a 'nominal' charge creates an insurmountable barrier to entry.

The net is revolutionary because the barrier to information access and dissemination is so low. This is why it is important to discuss free services, particularly before they become ubiquitous.

Money to spend on web services is a privilege.

April Fools

[doublesix]

Is it just me or is this whole GMail thing an April Fools prank gone horribly wrong?
Read the Google news release again:
The inspiration for Gmail came from a Google user complaining about the poor quality of existing email services, recalled Larry Page, Google co-founder and president, Products. "She kvetched about spending all her time filing messages or trying to find them," Page said. "And when she's not doing that, she has to delete email like crazy to stay under the obligatory four megabyte limit. So she asked, 'Can't you people fix this?'"
The idea that there could be a better way to handle email caught the attention of a Google engineer who thought it might be a good "20 percent time" project. (Google requires engineers to spend a day a week on projects that interest them, unrelated to their day jobs). Millions of M&Ms later, Gmail was born.
Kinda fishy.

Re:April Fools

[bfree]

Between this and this are you satisfied this isn't a joke?

so don't use it

[hekal]

if you're so concerned about gmail, stick with M$ hatemail and the 1mb limit or whatever that piece of crap gives you.

Personal Communication

[mojorisin67_71]

Gmail might be the first communication carrier
which is going to listen to personal communications and sellwhat it learns
information to its customers.

Imagine the phone company listening to conversions
and then sending you offers for products based
on what you talk about.

This is very different than spam/virus scanning.
In that the email is scanned but compared against
a pattern. In Gmail's case, the email is scanned
and information is gleaned from it.

I think Gmail starts a dangerous precendent. Once
companies think it is okay to listen to personal
communications then the possibilities are scary!

Privacy in the UK?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the country that has one video camera
for every 14 people, yes? At least people get
to _choose_ whether they want to use GMail or
not...

Ha ha

[abzorb]

This is not a technology problem.

Just put this on the front page of the gmail site,"Sorry not available to European Consumers".

The conflict is with EU law

[viralbus]

As it is clearly stated in the article, the problem is with EU law, which among other things states that individuals are in charge of information about them; this means that they can request to see all information held about them and to get it deleted. Storing private emails after the user has deleted them seems to run counter to this law.

Furthermore, in many EU countries there are certain rights that you cannot sign away in a contract, so Google cannot just point to the terms and conditions.

The solution might be to prevent EU residents from signing up to Gmail.

Re:The conflict is with EU law

[eetiiyupy]

The EU law which might cause the conflict is the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC). The policy of this law is to try to give citizens some control over what happens to personal data about them. In particular I can consent to some company controlling my personal data within limits which we agree but constrained by law. Google can collect that data, and I expect that the local spooks will want them to hang on to it even when an account is deleted. As long as it is clear that the retention of data following deletion of an account is only for law enforcement and not for commercial purposes they might be OK. Suppose Google is bought by a mega-corp we don't like, it's going to be a real pain for us all to change our email addresses, and what is this new owner going to be able to do with all of that personal data. Data Protection law is not such a bad idea.

Ridiculous

[Neurotoxic666]

groups said they were concerned about Google's ability to link a user's personal details

Google has NO ability whatsoever unless YOU give them YOUR email address.

These privacy groups make me mad, just like those who sued McDonald's for serving fat food. Come on. Use your fuckin brains. McDonald's never forced anyone to eat their stuff and Google never forced you to supply any data.

YOU chose to use a service, and YOU even go as far as to give them your email address. Deal with it. You did it. Are their any idiot-watch groups out there to signal those moron privacy-paranoid "tell-me-what-to-do-I-can't-decide-anything-by-mys elf" assholes?

uh yeah, umm,

[lunax]

If you're really worried that Google is gonna bypass your tin foil cap then why not register from a public terminal. Oh wait, I guess they could add a cookie when you check your mail, hmm, looks like I need more tin foil and duct tape, must make body suit.

Because...

[Mr. Underbridge]

Anyone can get access to a POP3/SMTP provider for almost no cost, with pretty free limits. Why is webmail so popular? For $9.95 a month, you can use PHP Webhosting...

I pay for enough crap every month, I don't feel the need to pay $120 a year for something I currently get for free. Particularly when Gmail rolls, and space isn't an issue.

At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[goldspider]

Like I said yesterday, it's time people stopped thinking of Google as a purely benevolent, community-oriented provider of goodness, and started to think of them as a company out to make money (especially with the impending IPO).

We don't give Microsoft a free pass, and it's time we stopped giving Google the benefit of the doubt. This whole GMail thing REEKS of privacy abuse potential.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[ClubStew]

Yes, because making money from products and services is bad! Damn anyone who tries.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[eV_x]

Why is it bad if a company tries to make money?

If you don't like the damned free service, use another!

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[goldspider]

"Why is it bad if a company tries to make money? If you don't like the damned free service, use another!"

Microsoft is just trying to make money too. So why then do people around here believe Microsoft is EVIL, when they have the choice to simply use something else (like LINUX).

Thank you for helping me illustrate Slashdot duplicity. Around here, some companies with dubious policies that make money are good, but certain other companies with dubious policies that make money are bad.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[wheany]

Around here there are people who think that Microsoft is evil. There are also people who think that Google is evil. These groups might have some overlap.

Slashdot is not a collective mind. You are not the only free thinker.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[mdfst13]

"Microsoft is just trying to make money too. So why then do people around here believe Microsoft is EVIL, when they have the choice to simply use something else (like LINUX)."

Microsoft actively tries to destroy companies that it thinks might interfere with their monopoly. Further, it uses its monopoly position to force deals upon other companies (for example, if you sold *any* PCs with Microsoft OSes, you had to pay a licensing fee even for those machines that did *not* have the Microsoft OS installed). Google has never done anything like this, AFAIK. Microsoft leverages its monopoly by requiring people who accept one piece to accept others (e.g. their EU case). Google offers people the *option* of using this service (and it is possible that they may not be able to offer the *option* in Europe if this is a real limitation; more likely, they will just tweak their service to bring it in line).

It's not making money/not making money. It's living honorably when you're at the top. Google traditionally has; Microsoft traditionally has not.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[platipusrc]

Around here, some companies with dubious policies that make money are good, but certain other companies with dubious policies that make money are bad.

You're right! The companies that are considered to be bad here, have generally been bad*. The companies that are not considered to be bad, have generally not been bad**.

*To use your example, Microsoft has generally ignored all laws that would apply to it, has managed to get out of most problems with the law somehow (some luck may have been involved, like new DOJ folks to let it off the hook...), and has hired the guy that made IBM an Intellectual Property enforcement machine back in the 80's.

**Google hasn't done that stuff as far as I know, notwithstanding the moronic google-watch guy.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[CristalShandaLear]

Exactly. I can't believe that the best argument I've seen for this service here is, 'At least they aren't hiding it.'

The problem is how to avoid google in the future which is a real task. It's nearly impossible to go to any site or search engine that doesn't use Google for searches. And all those people who rave about the google tool bar give me the shakes.

I think that should Google end up being as insidious as Microsoft (are we there yet?), Google is going to prove to be the harder one to get rid of.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Bandman]

...it's time people stopped thinking of Google as a purely benevolent, community-oriented provider of goodness...

I don't know about you, but I personally think of Google as a purely benevolent, community-oriented sentient organism.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[alexq]

Never mind the whole hullabaloo about the Orkut TOS...

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Orne]

Repeat after me, We are all free thinkers...

We are all free thinkers...

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[geoffspear]

It's nearly impossible to go to any site or search engine that doesn't use Google for searches.

Are you claiming that google has hijacked your DNS services so you can't reach yahoo, altavista, lycos, or msn for a search engine? As for "any site", 99.9% of the sites on the web don't use google's technology in any way. You're a freakin' moron.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Richthofen80]

purely benevolent, community-oriented provider of goodness, and started to think of them as a company out to make money

why are the two mutually exclusive? Why can't google make a good service, and be paid for providing that service?

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages."
-- Adam Smith

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Anonymous Coward]

We are all free thinkers...
i'm not!

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Anonymous Coward]

The GMail Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 2004. Human decisions are removed from targeted advertising. GMail begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Catbeller]

Repeat after me, We are all free thinkers...

So, if... we do question Google's future use of private information... we are... groupthinkers? And if we don't, we are... free thinkers! Got it. Thanks. Free is good, groupthink bad.

Slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength, up is down, we are saving Iraq for noble purposes...

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm more inclined to believe that Microsoft is astroturfing against Google.

But that's just me.

I'll go adjust my tinfoil hat now, even if this wouldn't be the first time Microsoft astroturfed (since that actually IS an example of them innovating, at least to a degree...)

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Blue Stone]

>> Repeat after me, We are all free thinkers...

>> We are all free thinkers...

I'm not.

No ... wait ...

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is just trying to make money too. So why then do people around here believe Microsoft is EVIL, when they have the choice to simply use something else (like LINUX).

Thank you for helping me illustrate Slashdot duplicity. Around here, some companies with dubious policies that make money are good, but certain other companies with dubious policies that make money are bad.

You're seeing the world in black and white, which is a fool's view.

Obviously if one company is "just trying to make money" and there are free alternatives, that doesn't mean the company is evil.

However, if the company is trying to make money by selling baby-skin purses, and the alternative is to use a synthetic leather purse, then I think it's safe to say the company is evil.

Repeat after me: it is quite possible to try to make money without being evil, and it is also possible to be evil without trying to make money. The two are unconnected.

See? It is not contradictory to think Microsoft are evil and Google not evil.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[milkman_matt]

We don't give Microsoft a free pass, and it's time we stopped giving Google the benefit of the doubt. This whole GMail thing REEKS of privacy abuse potential.

I don't think that's neccessarily the case.. I read the gmail site and yeah, they're going to use the information in your emails to serve ads, but they say that no human will ever read the message. It will be scanned for ad relevance. Now I'm going to give them the benfefit of the doubt because Google has never proven themselves unworthy of it. They give the community what the community wants. They come up with new and original ideas, and use them in an efficient manner..

Microsoft, on the other hand, which you use for your comparison, has proven themselves to be a bit shady. I won't say totally untrustworthy, because there's a motive behind every move, DRM, bunding of programs, integration of IE, whatever, they may honestly think they're doing something to make the user experience easy, I'm not standing up for them, nor am I damning them. I do however want to point out that they've done some shady things in the past, that's why they're being sued by everybody, anti-trust laws, anti-competitive practices, whatever. I've never seen google in court for unfair business practices, and they seem to genuinely have the user's experience in mind, and they go about providing it in a nice simple manner.

-matt

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[michrech]

You, sir, are an idiot.

No linux company (that I've ever heard of) copied another companies code and used it as their own.

No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has created a 'free' web browser to undercut another like MS did.

No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has been convicted of software piracy.

No linux company (that I've ever heard of) has been convicted of being a monopoly.

(I didn't read through all of the above link about NS vs IE article, but the skimming I did seems to cover much of it).

I could keep going, but you get the idea. MS *IS* an evil corporation. There are many *many* valid reasons to hate them.

Do us all a favor and crall back under your rock. Thanks for participating.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[CristalShandaLear]

Are you claiming that google has hijacked your DNS services so you can't reach yahoo, altavista, lycos, or msn for a search engine?

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I am saying is that I find more sites use google for searching their own sites. Also, until recently Yahoo was using google for their own search results and they are not the only search engine to do so.

I'm pretty sure your 99.9% of websites was one of those made up on the spot statistics but I'm 100% sure that you need to get your head out of your ass.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[geoffspear]

More sites use google for searching their own sites because google's technology is the best. It's hardly evil to build a product so good that everyone wants to use it; they're not forcing anything on anyone. You're not forced to use google, either, and if you don't like them, don't use them. Feel free to go somewhere else and get worse results.

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[Sri Lumpa]

>>We're all free thinkers

>I'm not.

>No ... wait ...

Arrrgh!

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[CristalShandaLear]

It's hardly evil to build a product so good that everyone wants to use it

Crack, heroin, ecstasy. Yeah, sometimes it can be evil to create something "so good" that everyone wants to use it.

Flawed logic rates +2 these days?

Re:At least SOMEONE is concerned about this

[geoffspear]

Tell me, did it become objectively evil to produce heroin before or after some government body decided it no longer had any medical use? Is producing OxyContin objectively evil now, or will it only become so if it's decided that the potential for abuse outweighs its medical benefits?

Terrorists!!

[1u3hr]

If a criminal organization is using Google's GMail system for planning a robbery, or if a terrorist group decides they want to attack rail systems in Europe and wants to do so by using random public terminals to sign into email accounts that someone else hosts, it's a problem.

Terrorists are going to attack rail systems by using random public terminals!?. You realise, of course, that this "argument" would equally justify opening every letter, bugging every phone call or fax, placing listening devices anywhere?

And in this particular case, there are uncounted thousands of email services, some encrypted, based in every country in the world, that "terrorists" could use. I really doubt they'd want to keep a gigabyte of plots online anyway, for any period.

We have a winner

[HarveyBirdman]

I will note, however, that at least in the United States we went ahead and outlawed indentured servitude

You just won silliest analogy on Slashdot for the day.

A coupon for a free "dinner for one" at the Country Kitchen Buffet is headed you way, and will arrive in a year or two.

Re:We have a winner

[dustmite]

Doesn't seem silly to me. Is it inaccurate? No, in fact it's a perfectly valid/correct analogy. Maybe a tad extreme (i.e. indentured servitude is arguably somewhat worse than giving up online privacy), but certainly not wrong. Point is quite clear: invasion of privacy is wrong, regardless of whether or not people are willing to deliberately give it up in exchange for commercial service/goods.

Re:We have a winner

[HarveyBirdman]

Maybe a tad extreme...

Yeah... a tad... hence the "Silly" award.

Re:We have a winner

[Bibbity]

Who is the authority that makes invasion of privacy "wrong"? You? The government?

If parents are responsible for their kids and to supervise them properly go through their personal items for drugs? Is that "wrong" or responsible parenting? Or what about tabloids/photographers/reporters who invade celebrity lives for their pocketbooks or notoriety? Is that "wrong" or simply journalism? What about husband/wife that suspects the other is having an affair and sets a private detective on their trail? "Wrong" or smart? How about a significant other who has learned through going through their mate's medical records that he/she has AIDS? Is that "wrong" or could you call it self defense?

These questions and scenarios are not meant to be answered by an individual, a panel of peers or even a government. "WRONG" is a moral issue and what was wrong yesterday may be right for some today and vice versa. What is wrong for you can be right for someone else.

In regards to the original analogy in question, to me, it does seem silly... whether it's "wrong" or not is a different matter.

Lots of ways to get yourself in the GMail database

[Anonymous Coward]

OK fine. So you don't have a GMail account, but what if you send mail to one?

Your boss: "I'm on the road - send me your status report IMMEDIATELY to yourboss@gmail.com"

Recruiter: "I have a job for you - send me your resume at somerecruiter@gmail.com..."

Hosted at Yahoo?

[cgenman]

Does anybody else find it creepy that this article is posted at Yahoo?

I don't want to jump on the SlashThink wagon, but does anyone storing e-mails on a free remote server have an expectation of privacy about automated searches and indexing? After all, your e-mail has to be read by machine at some point or another, or it isn't an e-mail. And is should be backed up. The only thing I can see about this is Google stuck their foot firmly in their mouth about basically accepted industry practices.

Re:Hosted at Yahoo?

[wdavies]

Not really, as Yahoo just puts out the REUTERS, AP etc news feeds w/o comment.

Courtesy of GSearch, here are other sources

of course it would have been creepy, if there had been a Content-based Ad, advertising Gmail!...

Re:Hosted at Yahoo?

[tekunokurato]

I agree-- when you ask a telemarketer to delete your name from its lists, they get up to like 60 days to do it. So it takes google a while to delete information from its servers; who cares? They tag it for deletion in the mean time, and you're perfectly safe.

yahoo does it

[Anonymous Coward]

the bottom part of my yahoo email page:

Copyright (C) 1994-2004 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Service - Copyright Policy - Guidelines - Ad Feedback
NOTICE: We collect personal information on this site.
To learn more about how we use your information, see our Privacy Policy

Boo Hoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Boo hooo hoo, my pussy hurts! I guess the EU must of passed a law stating all email is now going to be google mail? Otherwise, why dont they shut the hell up. If people dont like their policys, they can keep using hotmail or the email their ISP provides.

What kind of ads do you want?

[Fortress]

There seems to be a lot of complaints about targeted advertising, but may I remind you of the alternative?

Broadly distributed ads try to reach everyone, whether they're interested in or able to use the product. I'm a guy, but I still have to sit through tampon commercials on TV.

A targeted ad will at least be something I'm remotely interested in, if the targeters have done their job. If I spend a week surfing sneaker sites, odds are good that ads from Nike or Reebok will interest me.

I believe that you can't really avoid advertising, it's the background noise of modern life. So if I have to see a given amount of advertising, I would much prefer that it be about something interesting to me.

Advertisers are going to continue advertising whether you like it or not. Why wouldn't you want a "filter" that only delivers the stuff that you might like?

By the way, if you surf for pr0n, maybe you would prefer non-targeted ads, especially if the significant other is around.

Unable to delete the past...

[lewko]

It's hardly a new problem on the Internet that one can't delete messages from the past...

Tivo

[HarveyBirdman]

The fact that some jackasses complained about the Tivo situation does not excuse people acting like jackasses about GMail.

"A is wrong, but its okay because (unrelated) B was wrong" is really broken thinking.

The excuse is usually "but I wasn't excusing A", but there's no other reason to mention B unless there's implied excuse making. Otherwise it's a non sequitur and it crosses over from illogical to irrational.

There's also the assumption that the original poster is [1] a Tivo owner and [2] complained about Tivo data gathering.

Deal

[caitsith01]

Ok, that's fine. But when I decide the deal is off, I want a guarantee that you will personally go through every marketing database on earth and delete my details, so I am totally free and clear.

No? Well maybe we could just REGULATE IT NOW BEFORE IT'S A FUCKING PROBLEM THEN.

Sorry, but I am sick to death of this 'well then don't use it then' argument. 'Complaining' has another name, and it's 'telling a company what the consumer wants.' In this case the geek user market wants better privacy, so why do you insist on defending Google?

Re:Deal

[JordanH]

• But when I decide the deal is off...

Why do you get to decide unilaterally when the deal is off?

• 'Complaining' has another name, and it's 'telling a company what the consumer wants.' In this case the geek user market wants better privacy, so why do you insist on defending Google?

"Defending Google" here is defending the right to enter into agreements. You, apparently, want to be protected from your decisions by being able to change the terms of service if you don't like them at a later date and you want the force of law, through regulation, to enforce your preference.

You don't need regulation, you need to be responsible for your decisions.

Your concerns might be valid, I don't know. But, and I know you are sick to death of this, if you feel this way, "DON'T USE IT THEN". That would be a way of 'telling a company what the consumer wants'. But, you don't really want to tell a company what the consumer wants, you want to force the company to provide a service that you want.

Legal rights can usually be waived

[Anders Andersson]

If the Google mail service falls foul of this act, then it does not matter whether or not the service is free; it is still breaking the law.

The issue is not whether the service is free, but whether it's voluntary (which I believe it is). Not even the UK Data Protection Act (which exists in various implementations throughout the EU) prevents people from voluntarily submitting information about themselves and allowing Google to store that information indefinitely, if they so like. The law comes into play only if Google collects or processes personal information without the explicit consent of the individual concerned.

I think it's fine that privacy groups keep an eye on this to inform potential users of privacy shortcomings, but invoking this law to claim users can't even knowingly waive their rights is a bit misleading, I think.

Re:Legal rights can usually be waived

[Gumshoe]

Not even the UK Data Protection Act (which exists in various implementations throughout the EU) prevents people from voluntarily submitting information about themselves and allowing Google to store that information indefinitely, if they so like.

I don't think that's the problem. The UK Data Protection Act requires that personal information be purged if the person in question requests it. Google seem to be saying that there is no assurance that this will happen. From Google's privacy policy "[Google does not] guarantee the deletion of emails that are archived even if you cancel your account."

It's good that Google are being up front about this but even so, it simply isn't compatable with UK law.

Re:Legal rights can usually be waived

[Anders Andersson]

The UK Data Protection Act requires that personal information be purged if the person in question requests it.

You mean I can first agree to Google's terms allowing indefinite storage of my mail, but later change my mind and say that they must delete it, irrespective of what I first allowed them to do, just because the law says I cannot agree to indefinite storage?

If that's the law, then the law is in need of a good spanking. I understand that some rights are inalienable, such as freedom from slavery, but I don't consider physical destruction of all e-mail I have ever received to be an inalienable right, or I wouldn't be able to ever voluntarily hand over a copy of a single letter of mine to anybody else, not even to my own children.

What if I allow a journalist to interview me and publish my personal thoughts on some matter, then change my mind when the article eventually appears in print? Can I ask the newspaper to retract the edition? Are public libraries (and others who routinely archive papers they receive) forced to destroy their copies, upon my request? Of course not. I once gave permission to publish; I cannot retract that after publication has taken place, not even if my lawyer says I can.

Re:Legal rights can usually be waived

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't a problem with google not deleting your data under the DPA. As has been proven by case law (I forget the details), the provision in the act for unindexed data extends to computerised files as well.

If they make a reasonable effort to remove all your data, and any indices then any data / fragment left in their system does not fall foul of the DPA

Re:Legal rights can usually be waived

[swv3752]

It will probably come down to that if Google's terms of service are in Violation of your locality's laws, then you are not allowed to access thier service.

Encrypt 1GB chunks of hard drive.

[A55M0NKEY]

Then you can open multiple accounts and have a free offsite backup with no privacy concerns.

Re:Do it yourself

[mojorisin67_71]

Anyone can get access to a POP3/SMTP provider for almost no cost, with pretty free limits. Why is webmail so popular?

Since webmail is simple to use and requires no configuration of email clients. Most users understand web browsing.

Other than the /. crowd, who knows the meaning of POP3/SMTP.

No different than Yahoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo has the same type of clause in their privacy policy:

http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us/archives/det ai ls.html

"Please note that any information that we have copied may remain in back-up storage for some period of time after your deletion request. This may be the case even though no information about your account remains in our active user databases."

I'd imagine Hotmail says something similiar but I can't find it right now. It's rather unrealistic to think that once you delete a message it's gone forever. These services have replicas and backups all of which will contain your message for some period of time. Get over it people.

As for Google reading your email to show you ads. Every service which has a Spam filter scans your message for keywords, Google simply takes advantage of that process and show you ads which might be related. Sounds like a win to me.

Obvious

[Rotting]

Is it not obvious that there would be something like this associated with their service? They are offering far more than the norm as far as space for the email is concerned (I believe 5mb is roughly the norm).

How naive would someone have to be to believe that they are simply offering 1gb to anyone and everyone for absolutely nothing in return.

It started as google.com, not google.org ;)

They're all watching me

[minus9]

I'm sure the first thing the hotmail staff do when they get into work on a morning is read all my mail to find out what a fascinating life I lead.

As soon as Bill Gates and his henchmen manage to reconcile the facts that I am a 104 year old man from Zimbabwe, lots of hot teens want to meet me and I have a massive interest in cable descramblers then I am sure they have some evil plan to oppress me.

Re:They're all watching me

[TheSpoom]

Y'know, someone complained about this. Just thought you should know.

Re:They're all watching me

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG IT was inflamitory!
it wasnt called for!!!

dude i went into YOUR BRAIN and read the future

DUUUUUUUUDE!!!!!!!!1

Re:They're all watching me

[Rick and Roll]

Brilliant.

Actually, I could picture rabid vigilantes wanting working for a free e-mail service. I could also picture people working for Big Brother turning into rabid vigilantes.

Re:They're all watching me

[Mr_Silver]

As soon as Bill Gates and his henchmen manage to reconcile the facts that I am a 104 year old man from Zimbabwe, lots of hot teens want to meet me and I have a massive interest in cable descramblers then I am sure they have some evil plan to oppress me.

Apology accepted :o)

Simple solution.

[Agent Green]

Run your own server and stop bitching. :)

Then you can keep whatever you want on it...and with the price of drives, RAID controllers, and bandwidth, it's not terribly expensive either. The piece of mind is priceless.

Fortunately, I don't think that's much of a problem with the /. crowd. :)

Re:Simple solution.

[System.out.println()]

The piece of mind is priceless.

<insert one of countless typo-inspired jokes here>

That's PEACE of mind. PIECE of mind is what you give to someone when you tell them to fuck off. :)

Re:Simple solution.

[belloc]

Then you can keep whatever you want on it...and with the price of drives, RAID controllers, and bandwidth, it's not terribly expensive either.

That's assuming you've already got the infrastructure in place. That is, if you already have a box in place running 24/7 (like a firewall), then it's trivial (in terms of cost) to add a mail server to that same box.

But if you're planning to put an additional (standard tower) PC up just to run a mail server, you'll need to consider electricity costs. I pulled my mail server down for a month (actually, I relocated it somewhere else) to see what it did to my electric bill, and it turned out that my $90/mo bill went down to about $60/mo.

Of course that's terribly unscientific, since there could have been other factors involved, but it's not too far off what I calculated theoretically. I figured it would cost about $25 for 30 days of power to operate my mid-tower case, PIII 600 MHz processor, 300W power supply, running full time.

Anyway, my point is that it's not negligibly expensive to start building mail/web servers and dropping them into closets in your house. But if you're already running these PCs as file servers or whatever, then of course the added cost of adding mail functionality is negligible.

Belloc

Obvious Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

So if google is released in the UK, google will get sued.

Answer: Ban Brits from accessing google mail.

Seems to me that if people keep suing free services all over the place (or even games, for that matter... GTA3 anyone?) all that will happen is theyll release it saying you may not use this is you are British/haitain/a complete idiot.

at the risk of sounding like a fanboy, so far google have been an amazing example of a "good corporation", especially considering the power they wield, and when people complain about things like privacy infringment (google toolbar) its usually because theyre too stupid to notice googles not exactly hidden "WARNING: IF YOU DONT WANT US COLLECTING YOUR INFORMATION, PRESS THIS BUTTON".

Besides, its not like hotmail asks a bunch of stupid personal questions. Who's sueing them?

To much tin foil in the air

[cyberlotnet]

Whats the diffrence between Hotmail, Yahoo, Every other free email provider out there And Google..

Nothing, google is just upfront and honest about whats happening to your emails.

They have to "scan" through them to provide virus and spam protection.

They will use there distributed approach to searching to provide fast web based email services. This means your email could be on 100's of there servers at the same time. When you hit delete it might take a while for it to be removed from all systems.

Here a company steps forward and is 100% honest about what they are doing and we flame them.

No wonder we have to deal with lame support and excuses from companys every day.

Re:To much tin foil in the air

[BCW2]

Damn Skippy! Google is honest enough to say what they are doing and everyone bitches. Ah I hear the thundering heard of dumbass with their kneejerk reactions.
If you manage your cookies and pay attention to elementary security this is really a non-issue.

Re:To much tin foil in the air

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but trying to withhold the option to store the messages indefinitely is going a bit too far in my opinion. A reasonable compromise is to have scheduled purge of deleted data, and state clearly that any deleted email/account will be completely gone from the system in, say, 3 months.

NSA

[simpl3x]

As if every email isn't scanned by whatever software the government is currently running. Privacy will increasingly disappear as a concept, but this does not mean you do not have a degree of actual privacy. Do you believe you are important enough to monitor continuously?

Break out the tinfoil!

Re:NSA

[wulfhound]

The problem is not so much one of monitoring by governments and ISPs. Western governments by and large really do not care that much, and, in any case strong crypto and spoofing of all varieties is readily enough available that those who want privacy for high-value matters relating to, say, business, or national security, that it's not such a worry in those spheres.

For me it's more a case of - these days, once the Govt., or the intelligence and security services, have this monitoring infrastructure, it goes something like this:-

Year 1: The tax and benefits departments in the Govt will ask the spooks to start sharing. The police will ask for access also.

Year 2: The entire Government - health, pensions, local govt. etc., education - will all want it. Schools will use it to vet new employees.

Year 3: Security-conscious corporations like banks and airlines will demand access.

Year 4: The whole damn lot will be available on a couple of DVDs at your friendly local market... at least if you live in Moscow or Jakarta.

Year 5: "Check Other Peoples' Email" toolbar appears on Google. The dying embers of the snailmail service are suddenly brought back to life by the return to fashion of the traditional love letter.

Re:NSA

[rjelks]

Privacy isn't just an issue of "Big Brother." Identity theft is a real concern here in the US.

"More than 27 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years, a survey released today by the Government estimated, including nearly 10 million in the last year alone. " (Source: NYTimes, September 3, 2003)

"According to the [2003 FTC] survey, 67 percent of the respondents said their credit card accounts had been misused in the past year. Another 19 percent said thieves had tapped into their checking or savings accounts." (Source: NYTimes, September 3, 2003)

"Around 80% of computer crime is committed by 'insiders'. The 20% that is not done by insiders, manage to steal $100 million by some estimates; $1 billion by others." (Source: Web Crime Statistics. www.intergov.org)

Europe has much stricter privacy laws and as a result, they have much less identity fraud. I'd welcome more restrictions in the US about privacy. The bottom line is, Google does business in Europe, and their privacy statement may conflict with their laws...complaint filed.

-

Re:Indentured servitude

[A55M0NKEY]

We still have indentured servitude. You can sign contracts to work for someone for some future interval. If you try to wiggle out they can sue you. They can't beat you though, and there is no such thing as debtor's prison. Once you are broke, and they can lay claim to any future income beyond that required for barest survival, you can tell them to fsck off. What are they gonna do? Sue you for the lint in your pocket?

Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like the more I hear about Google, the more their "Don't be evil" central tenet seems flexible to them.

Re:Do it yourself

[thpdg]

It used to be that everyone who dialed up their ISP, circa 1996/1997 (and some before) did. It was the norm. What happened to that? Now you're lucky if your ISP doesn't just send you to Yahoo!, like SBC does.

Re:Lots of ways to get yourself in the GMail datab

[EachLennyAPenny]

And? :)

Re:Lots of ways to get yourself in the GMail datab

[daniel_yokomiso]

If your company doesn't have a mail server or if it doesn't require you to use for all work purposes, leave it now: it's a crappy company.

Ditto for contractors, I don't want to have an interview with a recruiter that uses a free mail account instead the company one.

Keeping email after account cancellation

[Anonymous Coward]

So they don't `cat /dev/zero > your_account` after you cancel. Who does?

And google's cookies are just as privicy breaking as any other site's cookies - not really, but enough for the paranoid to care.

So f--king what?

[superdan2k]

If it means that I get better search results, based on the content of my non-spam email, then you know what? MORE POWER TO THEM. I get so sick of this Luddite shit, sometimes. Oh no! Someone might know my name and where I surf to! If what you peruse on the Intarweb is so damn sacred to you, get an anonymous proxy server and quit your bitching.

Slavery vs. emails???

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you even BEGIN to compare slavery to emails? This is a completely different type of issue from slavery!

People should be able to choose if they will let Google's bots scan their emails. They're just programs! It's not like some human's going through your emails and reading the smutty stuff you write to your girlfriend.

If a robot reads it, is it still a privacy violation?

You will have to be more specific

[sphealey]

Dude, I will take my lumps here or in any other public forum. But I think you have taken a round swing and missed on this one. If privacy is considered a fundamental or inalienable right (an arguable question I will note), then it lies in the same area of the law as other fundamental rights, such as those that prohibit slavery.

sPh

Privacy complaints from the UK?

[Shivetya]

Am I missing something? The land of vid cameras is voicing privacy concerns? Maybe they are just concerned that other countries are following in their footsteps!

Besides, its an opt-in. You want the service you know what it entails. Without the ability to do what they are planning the whole system falls apart.

Preventive Jail Time

[gmuslera]

Ok, lets put in jail weapon owners for murder because "they could kill people".

The concerns are that google could violate privacy, in hypotetical speach, so they must be condemned in advance because they surely will do.

I think that most of the problems that raised concerns could be more related to the way google will store and manage messages (i.e. a cluster-like big bunch of machines where if someone brokens will be left there, not replaced, and that one could keep copies of deleted messages because could disconnected from network) than with how evil are google managers.

About the "violated privacy" of showing ads related with the mail i'm reading, I think that if I install a webmail anywhere, and put there google ads to finance it, the impact on privacy will be almost the same (in fact, probably will be less).

An advantage of not using IE.

[BCW2]

I use Netscape and Mozilla. I started each off with an empty cookie file and visited the sites I wanted to not log into later, like /. . I saved a copy of this file as cookies2. n=Now when I'm done I delete the cookie file and save cookies2 as cookies and avoid all the spyware crap everyone thinks they deserve.
Also if you block all third party cookies, you much less crap to delete anyway.

GPG?

[General Wesc]

This (supposed) privacy issue won't affect people who encrypt all their mail (and insist that their friends do as well). The stuff you get when registering for an account somewhere and that sort of trash won't be encrypted, but that stuff shouldn't be a serious issue, usually.

Maybe bringing these concerns to the public eye--even if the privacy groups lose--will help make public key encryption more popular. Right now, it's considered something used only by people in tin-foil hats. (Of course, we'll have to make the systems more user-friendly, but that isn't the biggest obstacle right now.)

Well,

[Anonymous Coward]

G(it's big brother)mail.

Yeah, but your analogy still sucks balls. [n/t]

[Anonymous Coward]

I lied, here's some text.

GPG?

[Annirak]

If you're that concerned, encrypt your email, and don't bother deleting the cookie.

I can see it now...

"QT69FOu8iJNq" Aha! He might buy a Palm Pilot!

Yeah right.

Government-backed blocking of services?

[Anders Andersson]

I was intrigued by the following statement in the article:

Government-backed privacy agencies in Sweden and Germany, however, have blocked commercial services because personal information required in order to sign up would be stored on U.S.-based computers.

I live in Sweden. I don't know about Germany, but I have never heard of any government-backed agency in Sweden actually blocking access to foreign services for any reason, and in particular not for such a silly reason as sign-up procedures not compliant with Swedish law! If anyone can guess what the article author is referring to here, please let me know.

I have been trying for years to have my employer (a state university) merely consider blocking certain foreign ISPs from pouring junk mail over ourselves, but every suggested policy in that direction has either been rejected with a vague reference to the law prohibiting that, or not seen any response at all. I find it hard to believe that anybody in Swedish public administration would officially approve of blocking third-party traffic, let alone actually do it.

so one upshot...

[jfruhlinger]

...of this legal action might be that some of the secrets of how Google works will be revealed?

jf

On Hotmail && Opera

[Duhavid]

I forget exactly where, but somewhere on the opera site, or a blog from one of the opera guys, there is an explaination for the hotmail not working with opera.

Why? Go read for yourself, but MS detects opera, then returns a stylesheet that pushs the right margin to some negative number.

Accidently, of course, I am sure. ( NOT! )

So, to sum up. Google has earned some respect by their conduct, and unless and until they blow it, they can capitalize on that. Microsoft, on the other hand, has earned, by their actions, disrespect. I dont dislike MS because they are successfull. I dont dislike them because they are big. I dislike them because they take illegal advantage, they use their size to bully, and they just will not stop, after a consent decree ( 1994, 10 years gone ), a finding against them ( the recent DOJ atrocity ), and the EU action against them. They do not innovate, they do not compete on the merits of their products. They lock you in. The shame is that you buy it, and are happy about it.

David

Talk about biting the hand that feeds...

[Flave]

Fine. I think Google should comply immediately with this complaint and deny GMail use to any UK resident.

Problem solved.

Re:Lots of ways to get yourself in the GMail datab

[robin_j]

OK fine. So you don't have a GMail account, but what if you send mail to one?

Again I would imagine that it is your concern whom you send mail to, if you don't trust a mail domain then you should not send mail to it. This is valid not matter what domain you are sending to.

If you are going to argue about the sender not being aware of what is going to happen to their mail remeber that's the same when you send to Hotmail or whatever, it's up to you to read the fine print when you send mail to someone.

Read the WHOLE article

[spleck]

The slashdot post and the second half of the article point out the complaint that Google has the capability to link all your past searches to the email you input to be kept informed of GMail developments. This would be something that is happening NOW, not later.

While I optimistically doubt Google will ever do anything heinous by linking my searches for "home construction photos" and "windows 2000 webdav locks up" to my email account, I recognize that some people don't want their searches for "cat snuff films" and "dog attacks cat" linked to their email, catlover@mail.com.

Re:Lots of ways to get yourself in the GMail datab

[Anonymous Coward]

In the country that I live in, cops have been known to use hotmail. :)

Could be same complaint vs other surveilancegimick

[SgtChaireBourne]

You could make similar complaints against the other surveilance services that Google is getting into. The privacy statement for their 6-degrees/friendster ripoff amounts to that any data you're dumb enough to enter about yourself or others is private unless a laywer asks for it and mentions DMCA in the request.

Basically between the archived e-mail, the search engine cookies and the social networking engine, there is an excellent, detailed data set.

European privacy law is, for the time being, much stricter than in the U.S. and it would be a good thing to bring the U.S. up to standard. Likewise, some countries are years (238 years) ahead of the U.S., Britain, France and a few others in regards to keeping public records accessible. If the U.S. and the EU had the same public access as Sweden and Finland have written into their constitution, more than a few expensive scandals could have been prevented.

Based on European Law

[eetiiyupy]

That would be Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data

Crybabies

[lo_fye]

Boo hoo!
Somebody call the whaaaaambulance!

First: If you read the EULA before you checked the box, you'd know about how they're going to use the info. So, it's not an invasion of your privacy. You told them they could do it! You 'signed the contract'.

Second: They're not trying to hide what they're doing AT ALL. They should be commended for that. It's stated right there on the main page.

Third: You should know by now that privacy doesn't exist. If you need to hide something, don't hide it on a cheapass server owned by someone else. Get your own co-located box and encrypt your mofo-email! PGP, baby. Or get a Hushmail account.

Fourth: It really is a genius revenue model. Minimally invasive. Text-ads are acceptable. Unlike Hotmail & Yahoo, Gmail won't have any annoying banner ads or pop-ups. That is awesome.

It's still a load of bullshit.

[FallLine]

Perhaps it is the case that google's plans are against European law (although they didn't really prove this point), but it's still a load of crap. Why shouldn't Europeans be allowed to decide for themselves how much of their privacy they want to retain (and worse yet, why should European law effectively prevent American's from doing what they will with their own private info)? As long as as google explicitly tells their customers what privacy they won't have and abides by it, I fail to see how this should involve lawmakers.

The fact is that this sort of capitalization of private information does benefit consumers by making a service commercially viable that would otherwise not be and furthermore adds value by making possible their thread tracking feature. Furthermore, I question whether this would really be this would be a meaningful intrusion into my privacy.

ALL email providers have the POTENTIAL to invade your privacy by definition. In fact, would not SPAM filters at Yahoo, MSN, et. al qualify in much the same way. They are looking for words in your email, many of which are commercially relevent (so as to prevent SPAM). Google is simply telling you up front that they're going to have scripts to scan through your email, just like countless other providers, the only difference is that they've admitted that this data is being used to serve up relevant ads instead of just block or categorize mail.

Re:It's still a load of bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why shouldn't Europeans be allowed to decide for themselves how much of their privacy they want to retain

We have. And we have passed laws to make it illegal to violate that privacy. Gmail is falling foul of those laws.

and worse yet, why should European law effectively prevent American's from doing what they will with their own private info

European law has no effect on how Google run their operation within America. Only their offerings that can be used within Europe are affected.

Re:It's still a load of bullshit.

[FallLine]

European law has no effect on how Google run their operation within America. Only their offerings that can be used within Europe are affected.

Technically this may be correct, but this often isn't true in practice. These sorts of laws can have a chilling effect on commerce in foreign countries. Would the EU be happy with a mere checkbox during user registration to indicate whether or not the registering user is from a EU country (denying access if they are)? Would they demand some kind of IP block? Would they demand some kind of physical address verification (way above and beyond what google seems to want to do now)? Where do you draw the line? How much cost must Google incur before you recognize that such laws are burdensome?

Dogfood?

[zuhl]

Spymac.com, running on Linux:

Courtesy of Netcraft.

Seems odd that they don't run on OS X server.

Re:Dogfood?

[DAldredge]

Linux and the HW to run their site costs less than the same HW/SW from apple.

Re:Dogfood?

[System.out.println()]

I that until recently XServes were an inferior option to Linux servers; however, I have seen on the SM forums that there are a few new Xserves, probably replacing the old ones as they wear out or become obsolete.

(Disclaimer: I neither work for Spymac nor know anything about hosting a large site, so feel free to ignore me.)

Source (Registration at spymac required, I think)

The truth!

[gt25500]

Come on guys, we all know the truth... Europe needs another sucker lined up. What do I mean? Once the Microsft funds run out they will take Google to court. With the Google guys being billionaires...they can afford it.
1) Complain
2) Sue
3)????
4) Profit!

Damn you, Slashdot!

[feidaykin]

I saw that headline and I thought, "OH my god I can sign up already? 1GB here I come!" and bashed gmail.com into my keyboard with great fury in an effort to get my free gigabyte, and what do I see but a FAQ that tells me they are in a closed testing phase.

Dumb slashdot gets me all worked up over nothing. Now granted, I suppose I could do things like, read beyond the headline, but, well, it's slashdot.

Anyway, yeah, privacy complaints, sure. For a service that nobody can use yet. You know, I'd like to register a privacy complaint for Duke Nukem Forver, there's some nasty DRM in that. And I think my sky car is bugged with a hidden camera.

You know, I honestly don't know why I'm even typing this crap. I mean, I'm trying to be funny I guess, but ever since they took the funny karma bonus away, you know, what's the point? The Slashdot FAQ tells me that I have to be smart, not just a smart ass. Well, sorry Taco, I don't know how to do that. So I, like the smartass I am, will now click the "Submit" button, and watch my karma cook!

The real issue...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the cookie file that Google places on your HD records your search history. This same cookie records your Gmail username (which in turn provides Google with your IP address, and if you used it to sign up, your real name) So basically, Google can easily know who you are, who you correspond with, and what you search for. What more could the feds need?

Privacy is not a problem...

[atlacatl]

I really don't see what the big deal is.

The whole point of one more email service is that it allows for more choice. Choice people. If any consumer is concerned about privacy, he/she/it has the choice of NOT using the service.

This choice is the whole premise of our society. No one (at least not yet), is forcing me to use X's or Y's email service...If you are concerned, don't use it.

These type of stories make it sound like we will be forced to use such services . This is a non-issue from the get-go. Google is in it to make a buck, and the way to do it (for them) is to profile the gmail users...We are not children, we know what that data is used for...Have a concern, RTFPrivacyStatement - And don't use it if you don't understand/like it...

Beta testing

[Syberghost]

For god's sake, people; if you sign up to beta test a program and it's got a problem, communicate with the developers. If they don't fix it, drop out of the beta program and don't use it.

Don't run off and dig up a lawyer and start casting lawsuits about.

Maybe some other kind of blocking

[Anders Andersson]

After giving it some thought, I come to the conclusion that the "blocking" need not refer to Internet traffic, but to administrative action against companies establishing themselves in Sweden, requiring them not to transfer customer data to countries outside the European Union. Such action may indeed be taken, and rightly so in my opinion.

Earlier on Slashdot, we have discussed German government efforts to block German Internet users from accessing certain websites abroad, and perhaps I was reading the passage in that context...

Re:Lots of ways to get yourself in the GMail datab

[tricops]

So you send email to their address at GMail, and... okay...

I suppose it could link the contents of the email to your email address/name
(which they could already anyway), but it can't place a cookie of any type on
your system by receiving an email from you. So, the person you're sending to
might be profiled from the email, but that was happening anyway. They made
the choice to subject themselves to it.

You're still personally as safe from that as you ever were.

Whats the problem?

[darth_silliarse]

Using Mozilla I can block all Google cookies anyway

What's the problem...

[corsetboy]

A few points about things that I'm seeing people mention again and again in these GMail threads: 1. The whole "Residual copies of email may remain on our systems" sounds to me more like the grim reality of how hard-drives operate. Do you think other email providers (hotmail, et al) perform extensive overwriting to ensure that every last trace of your emails are gone when you delete them? 2. The privacy violation with scanning emails to find advertising keywords. How come people don't complain when automated systems scan emails to check for spam? What's the difference? Face it, your email is already being scanned by automatic systems at many levels... So we're left with just the cookie mentioned in the article going against google. And it's up to them whether they use it for evil or not... Unless you delete it, that is... And the fact that they can get almost all of the same data by tracking IP addresses instead...

Eschelon sees all

[zihamesh]

Who cares whether Google is reading emails, the FBI's got there first.

Re:Eschelon sees all

[cmdrbuzz]

Dude, it ain't Eschelon its ECHELON
And its the NSA not the FBI. An agency prohibited by law not to spy on Americans.

Who would expect any privacy from Google?

[migloo]

Google keeps referencing private web pages that follow the "robot exclusion standard" (robots.txt etc...) and does not even comply with authentified requests to remove them.
So, if you have anything to hide (and who does not?), just avoid Google as much as you can.

But wasn't this a. . .?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought we all agreed that this was an April fools' prank. Lets not get carried away here.

Yahoo explicitly says it will delete any ....

[abstrakts]

this isn't a news article...
sad attempt at yahoo at saving themselves

How google works not so secret

[Jayfar]

"..of this legal action might be that some of the secrets of how Google works will be revealed?"

What secrets? Here's a 15-page technical paper on the Google File System for starters (just the first thing that turns up in a google search for google file system). Most everything else you might want to know of these 'secrets' is out there somewhere.

It's because they know your search history

[seaton carew]

...and can link it to YOU as soon as you "register" for Gmail.

I felt pretty dumb, having given them my prime email address (myfirstname@mylastname.net), then realising afterwards that through the magic everlasting cookie I had just enabled Google to link every search I had ever done back to ME personally. Like, DUH!
Heck, I don't even know what "interesting" data might be in there, but seeing as it's about ME, I damn well ought to be able to get access to it (under UK law).

More here.

That is what people are getting annoyed about - not the email service itself, just the registration process.

Google needs to restrict the service

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't get too excited about what Google is doing. This is not a service you are FORCED to have like power, water, gas or food. If you don't like the terms you should not use the FREE service.

Google should restrict the service to any people living in countries that prohibit this type of thing. They have no obligation what so ever to provide a gig of free mail space to anyone just becasue they want it.

I swear the world has gone crazy, they want everything for free, yet they want to earn a good wage, you have to wonder how these folks think THEIR company is going to make the cash they pay them with.

Here's a tip for ya.

[chinton]

If you don't like the policy DON'T USE THE SERVICE!

Here's what I like:

[natefanaro]

At the bottom of the article you get this:

Get your own free Yahoo! email address: Sign up

but I want to be tracked

[t1m0r4n]

Maybe it's because I'm reading at a threshold of 2, but I didn't see anyone mention actually wanting these "features" of google. Lots of people defending it, saying it's a voluntary agreement. But no one saying, "Man, it'll be great to have google knowing more about me." But, honestly, that's my opinion. I use Yahoo every day, and they consistantly present me with unrelated links. I am sick of looking at ads for the personals, for home loans, and for screen savers. See 'em every day, and I have no use for them. I use most of the Yahoo services, so, potentially, they could know a heck of a lot about me. But it seems they treat me as just another generic surfer. I think it would be nice if google could actually pull off a level of artificial intelligence clever enough to cater to my interests.

Irony of Ironies

[Anonymous Coward]

If Gmail pans out to be an experiment in massively networked storage as speculated in the earlier slashdot posting, won't the fruit of this project be the perfect solution to Europe's data retention problem?

Think about it. A massive network of nodes that can rememeber a massive amount of things spread all over a network that is pratically immune to deletion and faults?

Google Watch is also concerned about Google

[crotherm]

Google Watch also raises some interesting points concerning privacy, such as their persistant cookies and ties to the Bush Administration.

Re:Google Watch is also concerned about Google

[crotherm]

Overrated?!?!?... geez moderators can be dumbasses.

Privacy...I'm not bothered if they give me 1GB

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the people at Google have already planned what our reactions would be, which is why we are given 1GB of space.

To be honest, I do not really mind if Google goes snooping through my E-mails if I get 1000MB of space. Also it sorts your E-mails for you by putting it like a conversation; this will mean that I no longer have to do this manually.

Also, we aren't stupid enough to click on adverts are we? Don't we get targetted spam/adverts on Yahoo and Hotmail and Lycos? The fees got to be paid somehow.

I suppose that some people will care about this problem and perhaps Google should consider letting users choose whether or not they will pay for an account.
e.g. "Pay for no Ads" OR "Free with Ads and loosing your privacy"

Having read ZDnet's report, I still look forward to opening a free 1GB account with Gmail.
*Suggestion: Google should also plan a rival IM service.*
PS - I cannot be bothered to create an account on this forum.

Slashdot is Evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no!! Slashdot is evil. Slashdot saves/has backups of EVERY slashdot post!!!! My privacy my privacy.

a non invasive alternative for google

[zogger]

soprry, just thought I'd stick these comments here, vis a vis capitalism, free stuff etc.

Google can skip the email data mining and institute this for the voluntary and free ad based service. When you get an account with them, you are presented with a menu option, you have to check off a certain minimum number of topics (goods/services) that you are interested in. You can revisit that whenever you want to. You can't NOT choose a certain number to be fair to google, so it's in your interest to check off what floats your boat. Those ads get served, and google must promise to not sell the email addy or the topics, they are the trusted middleman in this. . The email stays reasonably secure (+ - ), and you should also have an option to either store email on their servers OR delete it, similar to what most ISPs have now. There should also be an option so that you can check off "please, text only both ways, no images, etc" mail. People who want "ohh shiny" email (biggest problem out there IMO) can have it, people who would rather skip the exploit dujour can have that. Text ads are perfectly acceptable to me at least, for a free email service, and I might actually purchase a product, because I *would* check topics of interest. I know I have purchased stuff (RAM to be precise) I saw as a result of googles sidebar ads when I ran a search. And the login cookie can be dealt with, just log out when you want to surf and trash that particular cookie, or set it to expire or whatever.

That more or less would work I think.

Re:Lots of ways to get yourself in the GMail datab

[Octagon Most]

"OK fine. So you don't have a GMail account, but what if you send mail to one?"

Additionally, it won't actually be that easy to tell if you are sending to a gmail.com domain. For example I own my own domain and simply redirect email to my ISP email account rather than pay for email hosting. So if you send email to any of my email addresses (something @ mydomain.com) you have no idea where it is actually going. Not currently to any webmail service, but in the future, who knows?

c'mon

[Rinisari]

I thought Gmail was just a stupid April's Fools joke. Geez.

Gimme a break..

[Anonymous Coward]

Like, if you don't want them being able ot keep up with you, DON'T USE THE FRICKIN SERVICE. They are offering you something at no cost out of your pocket, and you AGREE to whatever terms they specify to use it.

Thus, as long as they tell you during registration what (if anything) they will use your info for, etc, YOU ACCEPT THAT as the cost of the service.

Damn people...

Got a problem with GMail?

[1 (smarterThanYou)]

THEN DON'T USE IT AND STFU. Quit wasting everyone's time with stupid lawsuits. Until congress writes mandatory participation in the GMail program, this is pointless. This is hardly a privacy concern considering the vast amount of information that is available for purchase on the internet.

Ahem

[Zonekeeper]

It's google's mail. If you don't want to use it under their rules, then DON'T USE IT. But don't dare tell a company how to offer a FREE SERVICE. You aren't being FORCED to use it. Now if perhaps the US Postal Service was doing this, THEN you'd have something resembling a sane argument.

If I was google and getting this kind of attack, I'd say, in the soupnazi voice, "NO MAIL FOR YOU!"

Nothing to Worry About

[Finuvir]

It's obviously nothing to worry about; just look at the top two results for this search: gmail privacy. ;-)

(In case the results have changed since I posted, I got 'Google Responds to Gmail Privacy Concerns' and 'Google Gmail Privacy Issue Overblown')

Just don't sign up for it..

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is such a privacy risk (and it sounds like it is) just don't sign up for it.

Does this mean it's available?

[Kris_J]

I thought it was still invite-only beta...

I don't understand

[rjamestaylor]

I don't understand how a complaint can be filed against a product not yet available to the public.

I guess Lindon and London are both the homes of litigious bastards.

Don't Sweat It!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why complain if they can provide a great email service and better search services? Do you really think Hotmail or Yahoo dont do similar things? Where do you think half of your Yahoo/Hotmail SPAM comes from?

Let them provide us with a great email service and a better search engine. As long as they dont do any *immoral* activities with your personal email account. :-)

Google has less possibilities than your ISP...

[cavac]

Any major ISP can (and does) log more info about users that Google ever will be able to.

From Mails, News, http, login-times, to telephone-numbers from wher you dial in, transfer statistics, bank account number and so on... it's all there. Many times combined in a single user-interface for accounting reasons.

So what?

Horribly wrong?

[leonbrooks]

is this whole GMail thing an April Fools prank gone horribly wrong?

Wrong? If it was my April Fool's Day joke and it was still rolling a week later, I'd be insufferably pleased. (-:

Re:Horribly wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Gmail is an April fools joke - Remember Google are run by Geeks so this thing is right up their alley. Could you imagine the diskspace they would need for 1Gig of email storage for each user.

Re:Horribly wrong?

[junk]

1) why would they have a prank going for this long? don't you think it would damage their reputation?

2) do you understand who colm works for?

3) is there any way this could proved to you people who still, for some crazy ass reason, think this is fake?

4) have you seen the blog from the UI developer?

Slashdot is violating privacy!

[Trejkaz]

My cookie with my personal details from www.slashdot.org is being shared with games.slashdot.org! Please cease and desist this privacy violation, Slashdot!

Um... in Ireland?

[leonbrooks]

I wonder how long it is before google are happily releasing personal information under Patriot Act orders.

It might take google.ie some time (maybe millennia) to get around to complying with a law which has effect only on US soil.

Uhhh...

[leonbrooks]

Google keeps referencing private web pages [...] So, if you have anything to hide [...] just avoid Google

Do you, by any chance, happen to have very light-coloured hair? (-:

Also, can I refer to a very old adage that urges you to "live your life so that you could sell the family parrot to the town gossip without fear"?

So here we are...

[junk]

the elitist, the all knowing, the /.ers, bashing a service that, at the most, 1% of you have had any contact with.

First you complain about Google not being able to remove all of your data.
When was the last time you removed a user and made sure to trash all your HDs and burn all of the tape backups that held any of that user's data?

Then come the privacy concerns about people's mail being read.
How many of you have implemented SpamAssassin or a virus scanner at your place of business or a shell server you run? Don't these both actively read the content of people's mail and actively use that data for beneficial purposes?

OMG OMG OMG OMG! COOKIES!
Yes, there are cookies. There are cookies on /., there are cookies with hotmail, there are cookies all over the damn web. Do you think Google is the only company that can potentially use cookies to track you across their site? Has Google explicitly stated that they're going to do this? How can you bitch about something that has no foundation. Cookies aren't crazy little gnomes that no one can take apart and understand. Wait 'til it comes out, analyze the cookie, then complain if warranted.

Oh wait! Another company already has a 1G e-mail service available to the public!
I think people are missing the point somewhere. While the 1G limit is the icing on the cake, I don't think that's what Google really cares about. How innovative is 1G? I think the actual product that Google wants people to get excited about is the their ability to take something mundane that has been done many times and make it innovative and more useful to end users. (holy crap, you mean like what they did with search technology?!)

You can all whine and complain and EU can bust a nut all over themselves about theoretical privacy problems... or you can wait until you get your own account to pass judgement. All you have right now is the cover and you're already complaining about the book and calling it's author a hack.

Google will spam ALL your email accounts

[Anonymous Coward]

What this really means is that Google hopes to dominate the spam business. Why couldn't they have just gone into something more respectable, like porn?

The following folks will now receive spam through Google (i.e. EVERYONE):

1) If you have a Google email account, they will read your outgoing messages and spam your Google email account.

2) If you send email to someone with a Google email account, they will read your incoming message and spam your INCOMING email account.

3) Worst of all, if you are just CC-ed on an email which includes a Google email account, THEY WILL SPAM EVERY EMAIL ACCOUNT THEY SEE. Therefore, all mailing lists and group emails will generate spam like never before.

BTW, this is NOT the case with other free email accounts. They simply sell banner ads and other services on their sites. They do not invite spam since you the customer would walk away from a flood of spam in your hotmail/yahoo account. But Google has found a better way -- a chink in the armor of private email lists, rendering them oh-so-spammable.

In essence, Google's email practices will 1) make it impossible to hide your email address from spammers even if you have no connection to Google, and 2) will generate new spam like nobody's business.

I can only hope that this is the kiss of death for a company with such twisted values. I wonder why Microsoft didn't think of it first?

Randy

Google searching e-mail

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like the idea of Google going through all my incoming mail (yeah, it's innnocent - for now), so I'm going to set filters on all my e-mail accounts to bounce any mail from google.

um, these are not my words

[awall19]

"Those who are ready to sacrifice freedom for security ultimately will lose both."
-Abraham Lincoln