Slashdot Mirror
Judge Orders Deleted Emails Turned Over
Anonymous Coward writes "In a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission, a subpoena sent to Google orders the turnover of the complete contents of a Gmail account, including deleted e-mail messages. The Judge has granted the subpoena and orders that all e-mail messages, including deleted messages, be divulged. Google's privacy policy says deleted e-mail messages 'may remain in our offline backup systems' in perpetuity. It does not guarantee that backups are ever deleted. So much for the Delete Forever button."
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
oh, really?
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#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
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I agree with you that gmail takes way too many liberties with personal privacy, but really any mail system other than your own will have a similar issue. Presumably, all of the webmail providers backup their data, and store it offline for unspecified lengths of time, and presumably they would all be subject to subpoenas for that information.
Even if you store mail on your own servers, there is no guarantee that the same mail isn't stored somewhere else, such as say the Sent Messages folder of whoever sent it to you. The only way to maintain privacy is to not discuss private matters through email.
Much like those naked pictures of yourself taken at that frat party in 1983, you must assume that once a piece of information makes its way on to the Internet, it is not going to remain private.
Hey buddy, Here's that kiddy porn you wanted. -Anonymous
BadAnalogyGuy, is that you?
This guy's the limit!
Google: The gmail documents may remain present in our offline backup system. ... with a torch.
IRS: I eventually had to go down to the cellar...
Google: That's the offline backup system's machine room.
IRS:
Google: Ah, the lights had probably gone.
IRS: So had the stairs.
Google: But you found the tape, didn't you?
IRS: Yes. It was backed up on paper tape stored in the bottom of a locked drawer beneath a PC04/PC05 tape reader with a dot-matrix printed sign on the door saying 'ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS.' Ever thought of going into search technology?
Let's hope that the U.S. Government never goes after Strongbad, or he could be in trouble.
Part of living in the USA is dealing with things like this. What it comes down to it, if you are suspected by the government of being a terrorist, you have no rights. This has been true in the US long before GW Bush.
I think invasions of privacy like this are terrible, but I won't scold the US because I understand that they are doing it to protect me and everyone else in my country. I know that it opens up abuse, but *maybe* reading someone's email will save another person's life (or a lot of people). If so, I don't think any rational person would think it was wrong (not in a moral sense, but a practical one) that the government read the e-mails. As a semi-liberterian I know these views are really odd, but I think that it is too easy to get caught up in ideals and forget that one of our government's few essential jobs is to protect us, and that is practically impossible without a few right-killing powers. Plus I like to play the devil's advocate.
To be somewhat on topic, I'll give my opinion: Google should probably work on deleting those e-mails faster, but perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, a saved incriminating e-mail may benefit the world.
But but but, Google has a web page that says they won't be evil! This can not be!
The more you know, the less you understand.
Yeah, I mean you wouldn't want the following email message to get out into the public
to: MOMfrom: TripMasterMonkey
Subject: Second Post
Mom, I only got second post on the slashdot story about Gmail. Well, at least I got +5 interesting for mentioning 1984. If you need me, I'll be in the basement. A new story is coming out in 5 minutes and I have to do some serious copying and pasting and then mention privacy concerns. See you upstairs later tonight for dinner.
Love, Your son TMM ^_^
Finding other idiots on
The moral of this story is to never write down anything you don't want copied or seen by other eyes. I mean, look at the ancient Egyptians. We are reading their words today and they are hidden in booby-trapped tombs!
I would think that they have Google Backup. Beta of course...And only employees can be invited.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs
There's now more spam than legitamate email in the world, right? And we're all using spam filters, yes? Why not forward all your spam to a gmail account. If enough of us do it, google will see such a drop in SNR that there won't be any point storing all those old emails. What's that you say? Still not enough data to fill the mighty google? Set your random number generator to stun...
I prefer the Cone of Silence to secure my communications.
You! Yes, YOU! Out of the gene pool!
Formal Reply To Request
... ...
Requestor : DOJ
Requestee : Google Inc.
SEND 2003 01 15 0134 UTC - Hey bob how r u ?
RCPT 2003 01 15 0145 UTC - Good but ur gay lol @ u
+
+ Ads by Goooooogle
+
+ Buy gay for cheap!
+ gaystufffakesite.com
+
SEND 2003 01 15 0149 UTC - That's not funny. Hey let's screw the FTC
RCPT 2003 01 15 0203 UTC - Ok let's go.
(...)
They're there affecting their effect.
"I refuse to divulge my PGP private key & passphrase."
of course, followed by:
"And stop torturing me in this secret eastern european prison, #@##$$%!"
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Usable interfaces will be the downfall of civilized society, mark my words!!