California Senate Passes Preemptive Strike Against Gmail

Technically Inept writes "The California Senate has passed a measure to force Google to limit search capabilities on Gmail to real-time, with no records. What if I want them to search my mail in advance?"

Comments

Only here, apparently.

[Uriel]

We're legislating technology most people haven't even seen yet.

Re:Only here, apparently.

[Incoherent07]

That's the trick... all of the hoopla about Gmail's ads, and they're no different from the ads you see when you search Google normally.

California Legislature: "OMG Google knows I'm searching for pr0n, I'd better pass a law against it!"

Re:Only here, apparently.

[the_mad_poster]

I don't understand what the big deal is regardless. I mean, if you're sending plain text e-mails, they're going through multiple third parties anyway. If any of them wanted to keep and read your e-mail, nothing is stopping them now except encryption. What's different about Google other than they explicitly tell you they're going to do it.

I'm all for privacy, but all this hoopla just sounds like a bunch of techno-losers who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, but think it's a good "issue" to start screaming at the top of their lungs on.

Re:Only here, apparently.

[Yokaze]

> What's different about Google other than they explicitly tell you they're going to do it.

The difference is, that Google and other free email services have a commercial interest in it, while said third parties, with all probability, have not.

Creating the infrastructure to scan emails requires an investment, which has to pay off.

Those third parties are providing the bandwith for several parties. I assume that most companies wouldn't be very happy about having their connection tapped. So, not scanning any traffic is in their own commercial interest.

The legal implications by having the ability to scan emails and/or traffic are another reason they have no interest.

OTOH, Google (and others) can easily use that profiled data to generate revenue by targeting ads on pages they generate. Said third parties have no such mean.

Google and others are merely prohibited from profiling. They can still generate revenue from targeting ads by real-time data, like they do with their search-engine.

Re:Only here, apparently.

[AKnightCowboy]

The difference is, that Google and other free email services have a commercial interest in it, while said third parties, with all probability, have not.

Nobody HAS to use GMail so what is the real problem here? Don't send mail to people with gmail.com accounts if you don't want it archived and scanned. Duh.

Re:Only here, apparently.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem lies in that Google will be scanning users email, and that includes email sent to them not just by them?

And so, with my choice to not use Google email but the need to send a message to someone who does use Google email that means I don't have a choice whether or not my message is scanned by Google before it reaches the intended recipient.

It's like, any letter you write to your aunt in Town X is read before they deliver it. My aunt may not mind her mail being read, but I do, and so by her choice of no privacy I have no other choice but to not write to her if I want my message to be private.

It's a moot point, as far as I'm concerned. But I do understand the concern. There's no consent from those sending to a google email that their message is to be read by any one or any thing other than the intended recipient.

Re:Only here, apparently.

[peg0cjs]

And so, with my choice to not use Google email but the need to send a message to someone who does use Google email that means I don't have a choice whether or not my message is scanned by Google before it reaches the intended recipient.

If you are sending e-mail, assume it is read by a dozen people between you and the recipient. Why do so many people assume that cuz there's no paper trail, there's absolute privacy? Have we learned nothing about technology around here? E-mail is not private, has never been private, will never be private.

It's _VERY_ different from a letter to your aunt that is sealed in an envelope and is strictly private. In fact, it's a federal offense to open said letter if you aren't the authorized recipient. Your letter analogy only applies to encrypted e-mail communication, which is used, I'm guessing, less than 10% of the time.

Re:Only here, apparently.

[stephanruby]

And how about those people who are forwarding their OTHER email addresses to their gmail accounts? How can we tell that joesixpack@hotmail.com is forwarding to joesixpack@gmail.com?

Once you send your email off, it's no longer yours to control. This follows the laws of nature and the laws of the land.

Off shoring?

[DaHat]

Perhaps now we'll see Google move their operations and offices to India.

What, do lawmakers get paid per law now?

[Skyshadow]

Good 'ol stupid California*.

It seems to me that companies ought to have a right to exchange services with people on terms that both sides agree on. If Google wants to offer a gig of email in exchange for being able to stick context-oriented ads in it, they ought to be able to do so -- if you don't like it, buy your own damn email.

Hell, if Google wanted to offer me a gig of email in exchange for being able to read my messages, print out the embaressing ones and pass them around their offices, they should be able to do that, too. If I don't like it, I don't have to sign up.

But no, here in CA we never met a regulation or inhabition to business that we didn't like. God forbid the legislature not spend yet more time not fixing our insane budget problems.

* - Don't kid yourself. We still beat the hell out of your crappy state/country.

Re:What, do lawmakers get paid per law now?

[savagedome]

I completely agree. And for the paranoid, remember, that regular email is like sending postcard. Anybody on the route to destination can read it. If you don't want people reading/searching/printing your email, you should encrypt it. Period.

How many times do we need to say this? Jeez

Re:What, do lawmakers get paid per law now?

[drmike0099]

Schwarzenegger said it, and now I'm starting to believe it, that our full-time legislature simply has too much free time on its hands and is passing all sorts of silly laws (I think that's almost a direct quote). It's mind-boggling to me that they would waste my tax money to pay for them looking at this sort of useless crap, but they can't be bothered to look at other stuff that is actually important (education, environment, etc).

Re:What, do lawmakers get paid per law now?

[six11]

Just one of my many ideas on how to make government better: affix a time limit on every law. When the time limit is up, they have to vote on it again, and it has to pass with a larger percentage than it did the first time. Not only would this cull out silly knee-jerk laws like Patriot or this Google nonsense, it would also force lawmakers to deal with their mistakes by repealing laws, rather than spending time fucking things up for everybody else and increasing the number of laws on the books.

Re California: If Cally is so cool, why are you all migrating to Colorado?

Re:What, do lawmakers get paid per law now?

[Skyshadow]

Remember the 80's when credit card companies would give anyone a credit card at like 50% interest, compounded minutely? Some people were just stupid... some mislead... but either way, it had to stop, because even though there was a mutual agreement, more times then not, people signed away their soul because of other dire situations.

Whatever. I don't consider protecting people from their own stupidity to be a major legislative priority -- all that ever does is end up hurting the rest of us who have some detectible level of brain activity.

Re:What, do lawmakers get paid per law now?

[Xofer D]

As rediculous as some corperations would be, there would always be someone that will sign their life away.

It's not clear if we agree or not, but I am certain that it is the case that some limits to contract law are reasonable for reasons other than just to protect the stupid. I'm not sure what you mean, so I'll just go on and hope we agree by the end. Reading some of the replies to your comment, it is clear that some people aren't thinking carefully enough about what they are writing.

It is not the case that individuals can always negotiate a fair contract with corporations, and it is disingenious to cast the transaction as one between equals. The power differential is severe, and does not favour the individual. To observe this in action, try to negotiate your own cell phone package, or a la carte channel access from your cable company, or to buy half-life licenses without buying the game CD. The only decision is to take what is already offered, or leave it if what is offered is not exactly what you want. There is no chance to say "Do you have this in green?" or "Could I just pay you $10/mo for this instead of being spammed?" or "Please, not in the face!" - you are not dealing with a person and cannot negotiate.

Furthermore, it is common practice to ratchet offerings across an entire industry so that the consumer is not offered any choices. This is why you cannot get a credit card without signing away your financial privacy, and even why it is very hard to get some kinds of work without signing away your rights to spurious ideas you have while coincidentally at the office.

It is of note that some very popular laws in Canada and the USA agree with the viewpoint I am expressing. It is impossible to contractually sign away your human rights, for example. Further, it is impossible under our law to contractually agree to work under conditions that are prohibited by the labour laws (ie, you cannot agree to work for less than a minimum wage, hand-pack asbestos, etc).

The bottom line is that what we consider "rights" are in fact things that can be taken away, and it is simply the overwhelming will of the people that nobody should allow them to be taken away. If we permit people to contractually agree not to be protected by this will, then these "rights" are meaningless as we can be forced by circumstances (that can be created by others, note) to sign away our rights. Consider for example the case of the minimum wage: The majority of the populations of Canada and the USA seem to agree that there are wages that provide a standard of living below which nobody should be forced to work. If the law allows me to sign away my right to do so, then I may choose to work for that wage rather than go hungry - however by my stated assumption, nobody should have to make that choice (the astute will notice that this does not imply a solution; discussion of solutions to this problem are beyond the scope of this post). History backs this up; consider the living situation of the industrial world prior to the labour movement, with killing duty cycles, punishing labour conditions, child labour, etc. The 40-hour work week, the minimum working age, and the weekend are all products of that movement, and both are essentially constraints on contract law.

One of the central problems with capitalism is that it only works if we assume perfect or near-perfect competition. This does not happen in reality. As a caveat, the problem with many forms of socialism is that they only work if we assume perfect or near-perfect cooperation, which also does not happen in reality. I'm sorry, but it turns out there are no simple answers and it is likely that neither extreme socialism nor libertarianism are the answer in the real world.

Little overkill

[Zinic]

Google has yet to actually give us even the slightest notion that they would use Gmail in ways that would invade privacy. This is simply an act, I believe, by worried politicians that something good might dominate the Internet and threaten their pockets.

Why does this need legislation?

[th1ckasabr1ck]

If you don't agree to their terms, then don't sign up.

Initial thoutghts.

[vicviper]

Time for google to move out of Cali.

Is this law necessary if they disclose such practices? Isn't it up to the consumer not to use the product?

Time for google not to offer gmail in cali.

Just knee-jerk thoughts after reading the article.

Okay, no gmail for California

[jrockway]

Google should just say that it's illegal to use their service in California. Eventually enough angry Californians will complain, and the law will go away.

But what's the point of a law? Nobody is forcing you to use gmail. If you're worried about privacy, don't use gmail. Use Hotmail, Yahoo!, Hushmail, .Mac, your ISP, your own server, etc, etc. It's called a free market...

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT

[metalhed77]

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT DON'T USE IT.

This isn't an OS, it's email. I'll start to worry the day google implements GMTP (google mail transport protocol) until then, as a californian, I call our state govt. a steaming pile of shit.

Too bad we can't use Google to...

[overbyj]

search the brains of the geniuses who are pushing this bill through. I sure would like to know what they think they are accomplishing by limiting something not widely available and something that people have to opt-in to.

Re:Too bad we can't use Google to...

[Carnildo]

Too bad we can't use Google to search the brains of the geniuses who are pushing this bill through.

Don't you mean "search for"?

So go get your own email

[Skyshadow]

If you want your email to be private, go get an account someplace that won't scan your messages. Hell, you probably *have* one right now from your ISP.

You don't have a right to free email. In fact, I would go so far as to say there ain't no such thing -- you're paying for it one way or another. If you find one certain payment method objectionable, don't use it.

advanced search

[grub]

What if I want them to search my mail in advance?

Contact the NSA and ask for "Mr. Echelon".

Not exactly against Google

[GreyyGuy]

The bill, as I've read in other articles is agaisnt any service retaining information about the contents of people's emails. They can still scan it realtime and give ads based on keywords, but they can't store it in a database or share that information with other people.

It is a good thing, in my opinion, because you know as soon as Google announced they were going to do it and let people know about it, hundreds of others figured it would be a good idea to do it and not say anything and then sell email information to advertisers.

And Google approved the legistation as well. It is *NOT* a Bad Thing.

Sounds like it already is

[khendron]

"The bill by Democratic state Sen. Liz Figueroa would require Gmail to work only in real-time and would bar the service from producing records.

The bill also would bar Gmail form collecting personal information from e-mails and giving any information to third parties. "

Doesn't Google state that GMail already works this way? So in effect they are legislating it to do only what it already does. Unless Google turns evil and wants to invade our privacy, they won't mind at all.

I'm glad

[thebra]

that they are going after google now that they have put a stop to SPAM , adware and spyware. The web will now be a safer place.

No kidding

[billybob]

This is pretty much what I've been saying.

Google's a good company. They've never done anything that has raised my eyebrows before in terms of violating someone's privacy, or anything really. It's not like humans are going to scan your emails and decide what ads to put next to them. (Side note: the article was misleading in that it said gmail would place ads IN your email. Pure FUD. They're NEXT TO your email, which is way different). The whole system is automated, just like their AdSense program. It figures out what ads to display based ont he content of the web page.

The only argument that I've heard that makes any sense is if someone is against Gmail beacuse of this ad thing, so they dont sign up for the service, but then all their friends do so when they send email tot hem, their emails are scanned for content, even though they're not signed up with the service. Seriously though who cares. Google's not going to do anything like sell your email content to third party's so they can email your ads and stuff. People need to stop getting their panties all in a knot.

Re:No kidding

[JofCoRe]

The only argument that I've heard that makes any sense is if someone is against Gmail beacuse of this ad thing, so they dont sign up for the service, but then all their friends do so when they send email tot hem, their emails are scanned for content, even though they're not signed up with the service.

Hmm, messages scanned for content by the receiving mail server... nothing at all like these MailScanner and SpamAssassin packages that we have installed on our mailservers, that scan every piece of received mail for content. :)

(and we don't even tell the sender that we're "reading" their mail!)

Missing the point

[AntigonusPiglet]

Many people commenting on this issue say "If you don't want Google to read your mail, don't sign up." That assumes that the only person who has a potential privacy issue is the recipient of the e-mail. My problem is on the other end: when I SEND someone e-mail I don't want someone else to read it. Why should I compromise my privacy so you can get a bigger mailbox?

Re:Missing the point

[DoorFrame]

Well, but aren't you doing this already? I mean, lets say you send me an email. You've got absolutely NO way to know that I don't simply take what you sent me and archive it for later use, or take what you sent me and post it immediately on usenet somewhere. Once you've sent the email it's out of your hands and you need to trust that the person you've sent it to, and the organization they're getting their service from is a good one. If you know that the recipient or the service is faulyt, and you're unwilling to send them email, just let them know and don't send them anything until they change.

If you're so concerned about your privacy that you're worried about what your recipient is going to do with his/her email, it might be time for you to start making phone calls.

What!?

[Neurotoxic666]

First, those who voted for that bill most probably can't even turn on a damn computer. Let alone use an email service. The story should end right here. But these technophobic fuckers actualy have some power over what Google can do.

Google is a private company and they offer a free -- FREE -- service to users who agree to some terms and conditions of use. These users will most likely be very happy to use this service.

Now can anyone tell me why should the govt even consider thinking about voting anything concerning Gmail!?

No one is FORCED to use it. It's not like a Govt agency decides to send you spam based on your credit report and your annual income... Google is private and the users are free to use it or not.

I'm sorry, but I just don't get it. I can't. Nothing justifies the intervention of the government in a free, web-based service. Nothing at all. Google does not hide anything and is not violating any law.

The only basis for the vote is that "Google is huge", or something like that. It's just one step away from voting a bill against, say, an automotive email newsletter that contains car ads; or any other free service on the web for that matter.

They just should not have any jurisdiction over the internet... Just screw them. Or better yet: patent the bill and sue them for copyright infringement. I just can't believe those daily stupidities....

Re:What!?

[evilviper]

Playing devil's advocate here:

Now can anyone tell me why should the govt even consider thinking about voting anything concerning General Motors!?

No one is FORCED to use their cars. General motors is private and the users are free to use it or not.

Hopefully you can see from the example above that regulation is legitimate. With any product or service, people should be able to assume that it meets certain base requirements. That most definately includes a reasonable level of privacy.

Disclosure good, forced terms bad.

[Skyshadow]

There's nothing wrong with forcing a company to disclose what they're going to do. There's nothing wrong with forcing them to put it in simple language, nothing wrong with forcing them to point out other options.

It *is* wrong, however, to force a company to abide by certain terms in regards to totally legal activities.

Let's say that AT&T came out with a new cell plan tomorrow: You can call anyplace with your phone for as long as you want anytime for free. Beforehand, though, you have to listen to an ad for some company and press in a code they mention to prove you listened to the ad.

Should I have the right to sign up for this service? Of course I should -- I'm bartering my time and attention rather than my money, but it's a fair (and legal) trade.

What if AT&T offered the same deal, except that they wanted to be able to listen in on my call if they wanted to. Should I still have the right to sign up? Should I still have the right to decide if I'd rather spend $40 a month on my phone or give up my privacy?

I mean, I'm an adult. WTF does the government get off making these decisions for me, esp. when the people making the laws are a bunch of idiots to begin with?

Re:Disclosure good, forced terms bad.

[Turtlewind]

It *is* wrong, however, to force a company to abide by certain terms in regards to totally legal activities.

I agree with the point you were making, but this line is pure nonsense. Forcing people (or companies) not to do certain activities that were formerly totally legal is the whole point of making laws. When laws against (say) monopolistic practices were proposed, they were also restricting totally legal activities.

Re:Disclosure good, forced terms bad.

[YouHaveSnail]

And what if that new cellular service became so profitable that all the other cellular service providers also adopted that as their only business model? How would you like it if you never had to pay for a call again, but you couldn't find a provider who offered ad-free service, or who promised not to listen in on your calls? After all, if 90% of the market loves the free service and doesn't care about the privacy issues, who are you to say they shouldn't have it? And who are you to demand that the service providers go out of their way to deal with your antiquated notion of what their service *ought* to be? Presto, you no longer have a right to choose what kind of service you want, because the service you want is no longer available.

There's a grey area here. The net is infrastructure just like the phone system or the highway system or the mail system. As such, the government (federal government at least, and perhaps the state government too) has not only a right, but also a responsibility to regulate to some degree how it works and what we should be able to expect from it.

E-mail is one of the most widely used services on the net, even if you toss out all the spam. The general public uses it without necessarily knowing how it works, and there's a widespread presumption that even if e-mail isn't exactly guaranteed to be private, it's also generally not parsed and analyzed by the service providers. Given that, it seems reasonable for a government to try to protect that expectation.

I don't know if it'll work or not -- it seems like there's probably plenty of room for a legal challenge. But it also doesn't seem like a huge obstacle, and I can think of a dozen ways to abide by the regulation and still implement exactly the same sort of advertising model that Google is trying to use.

YOU ARE NOT AN EXPERT

[Ars-Fartsica]

How many fields can I pick where your own stupidity would kill you? Chemicals? Insulation in your home? Guess what, you aren't so smart. If not for legislation, think-they're-smarts like you would probably be dead due to misuse of a consumer product that "any idiot" should know how to manipulate.

The text of the actual bill

[z4ce]

Here is the text from the actual bill SB 1801:

BILL NUMBER: SB 1822 AMENDED
BILL TEXT

AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 20, 2004

INTRODUCED BY Senator Figueroa

FEBRUARY 20, 2004

An act to add Section 1798.87 to Title
1.81.15 (commencing with Section 1798.88) to Part 4 of Division 3 of
the Civil Code, relating to privacy.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 1822, as amended, Figueroa. Privacy: social security
numbers: sales online communications .
Existing law protects the privacy of personal information,
including customer records and social security numbers. Existing law
prohibits a person or entity located in California from initiating
or advertising in unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements, as
defined, and prohibits a person or entity not located in California
from initiating or advertising in unsolicited commercial e-mail
advertisements sent to a California e-mail address.
This bill would prohibit a provider of e-mail or instant messaging
services, as defined, that serves California customers, from
reviewing or evaluating the content of a customer's e-mail or instant
messages, except as specified. The bill would permit a provider of
e-mail or instant messaging services to review and evaluate the
content of a customer's outgoing e-mail or instant messages with the
customer's consent, and would permit a provider to review and
evaluate the content of incoming e-mail or instant messages only from
another subscriber to the same service and only when that subscriber
has consented to the procedure.
Existing law prohibits a person or entity, except as specified,
from publicly posting or displaying an individual's social security
number, and from printing that social security number on a card
required for the individual to access products or services.
This bill would provide that a person or entity that sells a
social security number is strictly liable to the person to whom the
social security number applies for any and all damages that directly
or indirectly result from the sale. The bill would except specified
transactions from its provisions.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. Section 1798.87 is added to the Civil Code, to

SECTION 1. Title 1.81.15 (commencing with Section 1798.88) is
added to Part 4 of Division 3 of the Civil Code, to read:

TITLE 1.81.15 PRIVACY OF ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS

1798.88. For the purpose of this title:
(a) "Electronic mail" or "e-mail" means an electronic message that
is sent to an e-mail address and transmitted between two or more
telecommunications devices, computers, or electronic devices capable
of receiving electronic messages, whether or not the message is
converted to hard copy format after receipt or is viewed upon
transmission or stored for later retrieval. "Electronic mail" or
"e-mail" includes electronic messages that are transmitted through a
local, regional, or global computer network.
(b) "Instant messaging service" means a service that alerts a
person when another person is online and allows them to communicate
with each other in current time in private, online areas.
(c) "Provider of electronic mail or instant messaging service"
means any person, including an Internet service provider, that is an
intermediary in sending or receiving electronic mail or instant
messages or that provides to users of the electronic mail or instant
messaging service the ability to send or receive electronic mail or
instant messages.
(d) "Spam" means an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement

Link to the detailed reasoning

[HDlife]

OK, I was pissed too...so I sought out the source. Here is Senator Figueroa's argument

Read more than the intro paragraph (it is BS), the detailed analysis is quite interesting. The big argument is that even though the Gmail account holder agreed to have their email profiled, the other party(ies) did not.

" Google could in just a few years be sitting on the richest direct marketing database in the world. It is impossible to imagine, outside of the world of science fiction, a more intimate source of direct marketing information.

"[...]With respect to Google's current expressions of good intent, what history teaches is, if there is personal information available, someone will want to use it for marketing. "

Now one has to think! If MS tried this, we would cry foul. But Google is one of the good guys...but guess what, they are going public! In a few years, they might be owned by Bill Gates, The Home Shopping Network, or the Direct Marketing Association.

Why is there so much AGAINST this law?

[hellfire]

To me the jury is still out on Gmail, because I don't trust any company, Google included, to responsibly use my personal information. Let me play devils advocate for just a second.

1) This bill according to everything I can see only restricts Google to how it can advertise. It can advertise on demand as emails are brought up, but what it can't do is create a massive indexed database with personal information based on emails I send with which to shell out advertisements to me. Why aren't more people scared to death of a database like that? We bitch and moan about governments creating databases like that, and giving up information to advertisers, why aren't we scared of this?

2) Everyone here is saying "if you don't like it, don't sign up for it." Great, but what happens when Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, AOL, etc, start doing it themselves? It makes it a lot more serious, especially if all those guys now have databases with personal information. My nice local ISP doesn't have that problem, but consumers are decent people who just don't have time to learn all this computer shit like everyone else, so they use hotmail. Go easy on them.

3) Does anyone one have a link to this law... PLEASE? People claim to have "read" this law but I'm too damn lazy to go searching for it when I've never even bothered to go to the California website to check it out. If there's no link here how are people making real comments on it... flamers usually don't usually read this stuff anyway so pardon me if I don't trust the Slashdot crowd ;) All I can go by is this article, for now.

4) This isn't restricting if Gmail can advertise, just how and what it does with personal information. There are already several laws and practices on the books about personal information. Collecting personal information is a huge boon to any major company because then they can shove ads down your throat, despite what most people truly want. Doing the wrong thing with personal information gets some companies in hot water but a lot of times it creates a huge windfall for that same company.

Re:The reason

[geminidomino]

Google Groups does a wonderful job of honoring "X-No-Archive: Yes" Since X-headers can be just as readily added to email, they could set it up to bounce/discard/pass unmolested (their choice) any email with an "X-No-Gmail" header. That would even take care of issues like email addresses forwarding to xxx@gmail.com