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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."
All email messages exist in perpetuity. They can be stored as backups in any server that they touch between the sender & the receiver.
If you're concerned about the contents of your emails being divulged - USE (open/gnu/etc...)PGP!
If that is still too insecure for you, meet the recipient in the middle of the park for a strolling conversation; and don't forget the white noise generator.
...it makes much more sense to run your own mail server. That's what I do. I don't trust ANYONE but myself with my mail.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Your ISP presumably backs up customer mail on a regular basis, and keeps those backups for God knows how long. POP accounts are no more secure than webmail accounts when talking about "deleted" mail.
Before you fly off the handle here, keep in mind that Google has only been ordered to produce the emails. What will be interesting is whether or not Google is able to produce the emails. If so, how many of them will they be able to retrieve? The subpoena itself - which is scary, but unfortunately a part of the legal system - is really secondary to this. A judge can't magically make deleted data reappear, no matter what they order. But if the data is not deleted... well... then your fears are fully justified.
I've always wondered if that clause was more of a CYA clause meant to get around the fact that plenty of stuff may remain in the GoogleFS for a period of time after it has been "deleted", but without a live index. The results here may very well show if that is true or not.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The point is that Google has this information on you, and will hand it over upon request
I think this would be better stated if you replace "will hand it over upon request" with "must hand it over when ordered to by a judge". I see a big difference there.
nothing
1. Buy stamps, envelopes & paper
2. Use the Postal Service
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Why more so than Hotmail, Yahoo, or any other webmail? I'm sure all their "privacy" promises are at least as loose as Google's.
While any ISP, including your local pop3 box provider would likely comply with this request...
Only google claims to want to "organize all the worlds information", including the information *you* no longer value, like old emails you've deleted. They have value to them for their profiling/advertising efforts.
While any ISP *might* have an incidental backup of your email going back 3 years. Google is the only one that is likely to be systematically going to the trouble of keeping your email, all of it, going back forever.
It only remains a question of how much data Google has actually retained. Though they don't guarantee to delete mail when trashed, in practice they probably do eventually, and the case concerns events two or three years ago.
Exactly. No other ISP is likely to be able to produce much more than an incidental or partial backup that far back; but nobody here will be surprised if Google can bring back everything. (Complete with relevant ads down one side.)