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Judge Orders Deleted Emails Turned Over

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the that-is-a-lot-of-mash-letters dept.

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."

8 of 600 comments (clear)

  1. Hate to say 'I told you so', but... by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 4, Interesting


    I TOLD YOU SO.

    I've maintained before that Google retains far too much information to make the use of Gmail anything less than a full-blown privacy nightmare. (For more information, please look here and here.)

    And now, the chickens have come home to roost. From TFA:
    The subpoena asks for not only current e-mail but also deleted e-mail: "All documents concerning all Gmail accounts of Baker...for the period from Jan. 1, 2003, to present, including but not limited to all e-mails and messages stored in all mailboxes, folders, in-boxes, sent items and deleted items, and all links to related Web pages contained in such e-mail messages."
    A stunning victory for the Establishment and a horror show for private citizens everywhere. Welcome to 1984.

    And before you start, please don't object that the person affected is a defendant in a criminal proceeding, because that's quite beside the point. The point is that Google has this information on you, and will hand it over upon request. This vindicates the caterwauling of all the privacy advocates concerning Google and Gmail, and establishes a dangerous legal precedent. Remember, as our 'inalienable' rights are systematically stripped away by the architects of the New World Order, more and more of the things you do become 'illegal'...and subject to criminal persecution...er...prosecution. It might not be long before you are being referred to as 'defendant'...what will you think of your Gmail account then?
    --
    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

    1. Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If you're concerned about your privacy, why are you sending sensitive information in the clear over email; through any provider?

      Use PGP!

      And would you mind telling me how gmail is any different than hotmail or yahoo mail in regards to managent's access to email contents?

      what will you think of your Gmail account then?

      "I refuse to divulge my PGP private key & passphrase."

    2. Re:Hate to say 'I told you so', but... by malchus842 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is why I'm my own ISP (so to speak). I run my own server, and do my own backups, which I retain ONLY for disaster recovery purposes. The system is backed-up each nite, with the backup files copied to another system. After 3 days, the backups are expunged with a secure erase program. It's all automated. It never hits tape, and as such, if I delete something, it's gone.

      I also religiously encrypt outbound email, and ask my correspondants to encrypt mail they send to me.

      Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think this is 100% secure, but it sure beats letting Google/Comcast/AT&T/Earthlink/MSN or whoever determine what gets kept and what doesn't.

      I would never change back - come what may, as long as owning a server is legal, that's how I'm getting my email. And if they try to make it illegal, well, Jefferson told us how to deal with that problem.

  2. The Government Hates Google by taylor_venable · · Score: 5, Interesting

    With everything that's been going on lately, it sounds like the American government really wants to take Google down in the war of public opinion. The gov't just keeps trying to make them look worse and worse. And since the American courts typically just allow the gov't to do whatever it wants, they're winning.

  3. U R pwned. by Bob+Cat+-+NYMPHS · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hey, I happen to know YOUR company does backups! You deleted your mail from the server, but you didn't hunt down those tapes in the vault, did you? Huh?

    Does NO ONE remember Ollie North and the White House PROFS system? 20 years later, and people still think incriminating data will always just go away when you desire.

    INFORMATION WANTS TO BE COPIED.

    --
    The latest Slashdot meme.
  4. Please !!!! by powerlord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Someone think of the poor people that will have to read through all the spam that goes through one mailbox!!!

    Heck ... I can picture the defense getting a 80GB archive tape and being told that was all messages recieved. Yes, 99.999% of them are spam. Enjoy.

    Talk about burying the opposition in paperwork.

    --
    This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
  5. how appropriate! by corbettw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Considering my first meeting today was regarding how best to redesign the mail system to make it easier to comply withsubpoenas in the future. Step one of that redesign: turn off the backups!

    Just more proof that the 'e' in email doesn't stand for 'electronic', it's 'evidence'.

    --
    God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  6. What privacy? by frinkacheese · · Score: 5, Interesting


    Look folks.. Privacy simply does not exist. You'll get your search terms read, email copied, if you encrypt you have to give over the keys and if you don't then you get put into prison anyway.

    Your phone will be tapped, mobile will be tracked, cars followed with "traffic enforcement cameras". Your DNA will be on file, biometrics saved and your Underground trips logged.

    Everywhere you go there are CCTV cameras, face recognition. Your purchases are tracked with credit cards, store loyalty cards and RFID tags. Your bank transactions are flagged if they look interesting and the tax people peer into your account looking for money that suddenly appears.

    1984 got here, oh, 22 years ago now...