890 College Students Sue Google Over Email Scanning (santacruzsentinel.com)

An anonymous reader quotes this report from Bay Area Newsgroup: Legal action against Google by four UC Berkeley students has ballooned into two lawsuits by 890 U.S. college students and alumni alleging the firm harvested their data for commercial gain without their consent...making the same claim: that Google's Apps for Education, which provided them with official university email accounts to use for school and personal communication, allowed Google until April 2014 to scan their emails without their consent for advertising purposes.... The suit by 710 students alleged that until April 2015, Google denied it was scanning students' emails for advertising purposes and misled schools into believing the emails were private.
The students' lawyers say each student is seeking a maximum of $10,000, while the U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh told the lawyer that "Our clerk's office is really unhappy you are circumventing our [$400 per case] filing fees by adding 710 cases under one case number."

Comments

Greed

[arth1]

District Court Judge Lucy Koh told the lawyer that "Our clerk's office is really unhappy you are circumventing our [$400 per case] filing fees by adding 710 cases under one case number."

District Court Judge Lucy Koh can shut up, unless she really intended to give each and every of the 710 cases separate considerations and judgment.

Re:Greed

[arth1]

While Google likely didn't make that much off of each one, for cases like this (against a company) it is supposed to be punitive, so in a perfect world, crimes would cost more than they'd make instead of companies doing something and paying pennies on the dollar from profits made.

In many ways, I wish we had civil law here in the US too, instead of common law. One thing many civil law jurisdictions have is a strict rule that no part should ever profit from a crime, which includes civil lawsuits arising from a crime. Compensation and punitive punishment are kept separate, and the latter is adjusted to the crime and means of the perpetrator, and implemented as a fine. The victim gets none of the proceeds, and is not a consideration, as the only purpose of the punitive fine is to reduce the risk of this happening again.

Unfortunately, the US system is revenge based, and not intended to reduce future crimes as much as giving the aggrieved an opportunity to exact revenge. So we have punitive damages going to the aggrieved, which creates an incentive to use the courts as the means to rob somebody, legally. So people (and lawyers) do.

Add judges and police chiefs that are elected with campaign contributions from specific interests, and juries being cherry picked through exclusions, and our legal system is inherently corrupt and biased.

Re:Greed

[AthanasiusKircher]

The not-so-funny issue with this is that this is along the same lines as why a 2013 attempt to sue over the same issue failed. See the Washington Post's coverage of the current case from back in February of this year:

And a previous lawsuit, in 2013, alleged that Google was illegally scanning students' emails, mirroring the Berkeley students' claims.

But the earlier case -- which was filed in the same federal court -- was framed differently, as a class-action suit on behalf of virtually all users of Google's Apps for Education. It ended in 2014, when a federal judge declined to certify the class, ruling that -- because each school is responsible for its own privacy explanations and disclosures -- users at some universities might have consented to the scanning of their emails.

I haven't looked into the legal details of the previous case, but this seems again like an abuse of the court systems of late to refuse to certify class action suits for random reasons. If the WaPo description is accurate, what difference does it make in a lawsuit against Google what the universities told their students in privacy disclosures, etc.? The only facts should be what Google claimed, either to the public directly or to administration folks at these universities, about what their email should be used for. On the face of it, this seems a rather silly reason to disqualify a class action. (That is, unless they have proof that some students involved had actually signed a waiver from their university saying, "As a student here, you consent to having your email used by Google for commercial purposes." It seems really unlikely any university would ever make a student sign such a waiver, since it would probably be considered a significant FERPA violation.)

Anyhow, the present suit is restricted to one college, because Berkeley explicitly told students that their email wouldn't be scanned for advertising purposes. Again -- all of this seems irrelevant to a lawsuit against Google. If Google told university administrators that they WOULD scan email, and the university told students it WOULD NOT scan email, then the students should suing Berkeley instead of Google.

But if the situation was misrepresented both to the university AND to the students, and the students all were harmed in a similar fashion by the exact same mechanism, I can't see how it makes sense to force them all try separate cases here.

Re:Greed

[tomhath]

It should be filed as a class action suit, or filed as individual. The lawyer is trying to bend the rules for his own profit:

Gallo, who is representing the students in both cases, said he expected Google to file a request to separate the 710 claims individually.

"This is a mass case and the question is, 'Can these people who all have essentially the same claim bring it together so that a lawyer like me will agree to do it?" he said. "If these cases have to be filed individually, no lawyer would take it."

Re:Greed

[BarbaraHudson]

The damages per person would be de minimus. Trying to get around having to go the class action route by filing all these separate cases in one file may not fly.

Maybe we need a start screen on every web browser that says "WARNING: NOTHING ON THE WEB IS GUARANTEED TO BE PRIVATE. LOSE ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE."

Re:Greed

[BarbaraHudson]

Sounds to me like people are stupid enough to believe that anything on the net can be made private.

Re: Greed

[arth1]

Please. Would you want to bother going through the legal process if you were to get nothing out of it while your government reaped the rewards and then wasted it on something stupid?

That would be like the bully at school stealing your lunch, so the school principal makes the parents buy you a new one but the principal gets to eat it.

No, it wouldn't. You would get reparations for the actual damages, which is your incentive. But not a smidgeon more. It would be like forcing the bully's parents to compensate you for every lunch that was stolen, plus an additional fine that neither you nor the headmaster gets[*], but is intended to make other potential school bullies think twice before stealing someone's lunch.

[*]: Typically, punitive fines go into trusts that allows courts to pay out actual damages to the grievants even when the ones who should pay are insolvent. Any excess would go to the government as a whole, just like taxes and other federal fines. In your example, it means that you would still be reimbursed your stolen lunches even if the bully's parents were destitute.

Re:Greed

[arth1]

It's perfectly possible to have Common Law without the concept of punitive damages. Most common law jurisdictions have that. England, for example: no punitive damages, and no juries on civil cases (except slander/libel). So you could, theoretically, reform US law without starting again from scratch.

True. There are also civil law countries with a good measure of common law elements, like the Scandinavian countries.
But overall, the civil law countries seem to be less inclined to meter revenge, and punitive damages going to the accuser is rather more rare, due to the underlying principle that no party should be allowed to benefit from a crime.

I'd certainly welcome even a gradual change over time from a justice system that's based on Abrahamic values of revenge and placating the accused to one that works to prevent future crime more than giving the satisfaction of hurting those who hurt you.

Re:Greed

[chihowa]

"Privacy" is not a binary attribute and there are legally established reasonable expectations of privacy, even in public places (see the other story about FBI microphones overhearing private conversations at bus stops). It's not stupid to expect that your university email is private from unreasonable snooping by third parties and for purposes unrelated to to specific university policies. Just as talking about personal matters while you're walking in a park isn't stupid because spies with shotgun mikes could be hiding in the trees listening to you.

The keyword in this conversation is "reasonable", which advertising companies stretch well beyond sanity with respect to privacy. It's not reasonable to expect that going to school at UC Berkeley means that Google gets unfettered access to all of your university email.

Re:Greed

[Lost Race]

Maybe we need a start screen on every web browser that says "WARNING: NOTHING ON THE WEB IS GUARANTEED TO BE PRIVATE. LOSE ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE."

What a shitty world to live in. We can do better than that.

Re:Greed

[Lost Race]

To be fair to Judge Judy, I mean Lucy, she was just relaying the clerk's unhappiness. Maybe she thinks the clerk is a crybaby too.

Re:Greed

[BarbaraHudson]

Maybe we need a start screen on every web browser that says "WARNING: NOTHING ON THE WEB IS GUARANTEED TO BE PRIVATE. LOSE ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE."

What a shitty world to live in. We can do better than that.

Apparently not ...

Re:Greed

[Hognoxious]

no juries on civil cases (except slander/libel).

And fraud and false imprisonment.

Re:Greed

[Hognoxious]

If they didn't want people to do it, perhaps they should have written the rules better?

Re: Greed

[Killall -9 Bash]

1. The distinction between a meat-intelligence and a machine-intelligence reading your email means something now, but it will mean far less in the VERY near future.

2. You seem to believe the myth of 'non-personally identifiable' data being collected. Sure. That's what everyone does. Non identifiable. Aggregate. Averages. Then you see an add pop up for something you just read an email about. You think 'personally identifiable' means the meat-space name your parents gave you?? That name means little now, and will mean NOTHING in the future. MAC addresses. CPU SNs. System hashes. These are your digital social security number.

Easiest case ever

[Trachman]

Google clearly says that you get "free" email for a right to be analyzed, probed and offered products. Zero privacy, so to speak.

Now, those educational accounts managed by Google are a slightly different animal. That being said, if services are free I am sure google has a sentence, somewhere in the fine print, that allows them scan and analyze.

Of course, the main irony of the original posting is the resentment of the court office for plaintiffs being cheapskates and paying only $400, rather than paying $28 thousand in filing fees.

Re:Easiest case ever

[silas_moeckel]

They claim in the bing print to not do any of that for education accounts, it makes sense that getting kids hooked on the google ecosystem is worth it to them. Your math is off thats 280k ish on filing fee's alone for cases that are all identical that would clog up a the courts for years to go though.

Re:Easiest case ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's description of educational services clearly states that emails are scanned to "improve product experience". There is a FAQ question/answer which addresses this.

Re:Easiest case ever

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a large University. Our contract allows for University faculty, staff and students to opt-out of google's data gathering. I think it should be opt-in, but it doesn't seem to be. If you opt-out, you are governed by a contract between Google and the University which bars google from performing data mining on your email, calendar and a few others. An opt-out account is not a full google account and is not part of many Google services like Youtube and Blogger. I have an opt-out account, and I never used the account prior to opting out. If Google did in fact data mine my information, that is a breach of the three-way agreement between the University, Google and me.

Re:Easiest case ever

[ShanghaiBill]

Zero privacy, so to speak.

Is a computer program scanning your email really an invasion of privacy, if there is no human in the loop? Are they outraged that their spellchecker is also scanning their emails?

Re:Easiest case ever

[AthanasiusKircher]

That being said, if services are free I am sure google has a sentence, somewhere in the fine print, that allows them scan and analyze.

The issue is that at UC Berkeley (and a number of other colleges), students were explicitly told that their email would NOT be scanned for commercial purposes.

So, regardless of what Google did, there was some miscommunication here. If Google told college officials that they were scanning email, but the college told students they were NOT, then the students should be suing Berkeley instead of Google -- and this lawsuit should be dismissed.

But since this has gotten this far, I'm assuming this is NOT the case and that Google at some point misrepresented the situation to Berkeley administrators, as well as the students. If they had solid documentation that Google actively misled the college and supported these assertions that email would not be scanned... the "fine print" may not matter as much, even if it was buried there somewhere.

Re:Easiest case ever

[BarbaraHudson]

Google's description of educational services clearly states that emails are scanned to "improve product experience". There is a FAQ question/answer which addresses this.

Product improvement is not advertising.

Sure it is - the product here is the students. Remember, if it's free, YOU are the product.

Re:Easiest case ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Google clearly says that you get "free" email...

This is the paid version of Google Apps, totally different than the legacy free version or standard Google Mail. There is Apps for Education, Business, and Government. The free version was discontinued years ago. The paid versions don't scan your mail and there is no way to enable it. However, from start of the service and up until to 2 years ago, the Apps administrator could control whether ads were displayed (via scanning) and it was enabled by default.

Re:Easiest case ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is all of this reasonable nuance in the windows 10 threads?

Re:Easiest case ever

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually read the terms of service to things I sign up for. When RIT transitioned to Google Apps, the Google Terms of Service we were required to agree to said Google would not scan our accounts. It was a thing some students were complaining about and we were told go read the terms of service, it says they won't scan.
I didn't believe Google and it turns out I was right. How do I join the lawsuit?

Re:Easiest case ever

[Killall -9 Bash]

They will be when their spellchecker refuses to open the pod bay doors.

Re:Easiest case ever

[The-Ixian]

I am too afraid of pusher robots for this to be funny...

Re:Easiest case ever

[BarbaraHudson]

First, so what if it's not free? Is your computer free? Your clothes? Your TV? Your living quarters? They're all free - if you're in a federal pen. Otherwise ...

You can always use a non-free email service.

As for your whereabouts, unless you put your phone in a faraday cage, they already know that. Even more so if you turn on location services for such things as step-by-step directions. You are the product. Or you can stop using a phone, and use a different email server.

Re:Easiest case ever

[BarbaraHudson]

No, the product is the web service. To google, the students are users.

Oh, that is SO last-century :-)

Class action

[Anonymous Coward]

I and millions of others across the US have been in the same position over the last decade with universities student email. I think this is exactly what class action was designed for - a relatively small amount of cash damages per person, maybe a few hundred each, but a huge penalty against the company that offended.

I don't want one red cent but I want google to have to write a BIG check and also establish case law so that this shit stops.

On a side note could the universities be liable too?

Posted anonymously because I fear speaking ill of Google could hurt future job prospects with many places that aren't google.

Re:Class action

[bagofbeans]

Posted anonymously because I fear speaking

Welcome to the surveillance state.

Re:Class action

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you think i've been posting AC for years? If any of my employers (banks, insurance companies, large SW firms) knew what I REALLY thought, I'd never get hired (I know, because I have enough experience of what happens when they DO find out).

If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. idiot sheep.

Re:Class action

[BarbaraHudson]

You're free to use a paid email service from a service provider. Of course, if the recipient uses one of the free email services, you're still going to have your email scanned when they receive it.

Re:Class action

[BarbaraHudson]

And whose problem is that? Nobody is obliged to give you everything you want, the way you want it. Don't like it, go somewhere else. Can't get it somewhere else? Too bad.

Free: Private; no strings attached?

[BoRegardless]

And I've got a bridge I want to sell you cheap!

It's possible Google DID make $10K off each one

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>>>> $10K?
>> While Google likely didn't make that much off of each one

Let's do some math. I've been searching with Google for about 13 years and have probably made about $1M after taxes during that time. In that time advertisers have probably spent much more than 1% ($10K) influencing what that $1M purchased. And since most of my purchases begin with a Google search, I think it's quite possible that Google has collected $10K from organizations wanting to advertise to me.

Re:It's possible Google DID make $10K off each one

[BarbaraHudson]

"Let's do the math"

No, lets be realistic. These are STUDENTS. They're making debt, not money.

Re:It's possible Google DID make $10K off each one

[Anonymous Coward]

They're making debt, not money.

Same thing...they're merely mistaken about which way the creek is flowing. -PCP

Re:It's possible Google DID make $10K off each one

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> You spent 100% of your earnings?

Banks and investment firms advertise too. :)

Re:It's possible Google DID make $10K off each one

[TheRaven64]

Building a detailed marketing profile for people who are just about to enter the job market and will be buying stuff for decades to come is valuable. Tastes change over time, but they generally change slowly, so a detailed profile now that can be refined over time is hugely valuable. If anything, $10K is too low unless it also comes with a requirement that Google delete all data about these students (including data on aggregate models).

Re:It's possible Google DID make $10K off each one

[BarbaraHudson]

Have you changed since you went to college? I sure have. A LOT. Nobody stays the same. And really, who cares? Nobody's making you buy anything. I know that there are marketers who claim that their hyper-targeted marketing works, but (1) they're marketers, so they lie, and (2) we've been so over-exposed to marketing that we are not very susceptible to it any more.

I don't feel my life is any less complete because I don't own the latest iGadget. Or take cruises around the world. Or visit Disney World (How do you tell a kid in hospital that he's dying? "Hey, we're all going to Disney World!"). Or not drinking any particular brand of beer, or pop, or coffee (I don't drink any of them, so ads just aren't doing the job, I guess),

So the only advantage of them having a profile on me would be that I would no longer be bombarded with ads for stuff, and I'm okay with that..

This

[fluffernutter]

This is why I never use Google for anything I want to keep to myself.

Re:This

[fluffernutter]

Also, why I don't trust the cloud.

No grounds: no consideration

[DogDude]

You can't sue somebody who gave you something for free. There's no "consideration". The people suing lost nothing, because they spent nothing for the email service, so they have no grounds to sue for anything. I'm not a lawyer, but basic Law 101 teaches this.

That being said, paid, un-scanned email costs a few bucks a month.

Re:No grounds: no consideration

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Google gives a guarantee to not scan educational users email when you sign up. Fraud is fraud regardless if you paid up or not.

Re:No grounds: no consideration

[Hognoxious]

You can't sue someone for breach of contract who gave you something for free. There's no "consideration".

FTFY.

Over a tort, that wouldn't apply.

Re:No grounds: no consideration

[Sir Holo]

You can't sue somebody who gave you something for free. There's no "consideration". The people suing lost nothing, because they spent nothing for the email service, so they have no grounds to sue for anything. I'm not a lawyer, but basic Law 101 teaches this.

UC System is pushing to require all Faculty/Staff to move to the gmail system, too. It is, therefore, a "work" email account. The consideration is your pay.

This class-action will grow.

Re:No grounds: no consideration

[thejynxed]

Not in all cases. That bit only seems to apply to the under-18 crowd, and again, much like Microsoft, they seem to have different EULAs, etc for each product and each step up in service as well as blanket EULAs and disclaimers.

Re: It's possible Google DID make $10K off each on

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's do some more math:

Years using an ad blocker (13) * Google ads clicked on per year (0) = $0 spent on you by advertisers advertising through Google

Re:really?

[BarbaraHudson]

Its a good thing this judge expresses more concern about money, and not law.

Isn't the goal of this lawsuit money? And isn't this just a ruse to avoid the hassle of a class action?

Re:Cheaper Paid Email

[Hognoxious]

WoT;dr

It is UC-wide

[Sir Holo]

All of the UC campuses have been migrating from their own servers to Google mail servers. Previously in-place, on-campus servers will be switched-off. All of us at UC campuses are, in effect, being forced to use Google Mail for University email.

Your new email address is, for example: FLastname@g.ucxx.edu

Many of us have chosen, instead, to use our own external, or personally hosted external, email servers. We just set any gmail to forward it to our own email, and respond from our own private email servers. Ah, but we are State Employees, so that might end if someone puts the hammer down. UC can spy on my UC email, sure, just like any employer. But if State Law commanded that I use my employer-provided email address for 'business' use, I don't know that I would obey. And ayway, what about a FB message, personal phone text message, a Linked-In mail, or any other such?

My fear is FOIA request for project-related emails by a competing group in the same field. That wold be academic espionage, with us being commanded to expose ourselves. Not a good thing.

I recall the transition on my UC campus (for faculty/staff) a year or so ago. I read through the 'Terms of Service', in full (oh so boring!). I do not recall reading any part mentioning encryption, nor any promises to NOT data-mine my emails. Many scientist's email discuss patentable ideas, as well as per-group "trade secrets" that we use to stay at the top of our fields. I don't like those being indexed, to be honest.

Where do I sign up?

[Sir Holo]

All UC Faculty & Staff are included in this.

Who is handling the case?

Where do I sign up to affirm desire to be part of the class?

This is how it should be

[Rick Zeman]

The students' lawyers say each student is seeking a maximum of $10,000, while the U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh told the lawyer that "Our clerk's office is really unhappy you are circumventing our [$400 per case] filing fees by adding 710 cases under one case number."

Then award should be a max of $14.38 each if Google is found liable. Oh, and don't forget to pay the shyster his 1/3 cut.

There is a solution--if the google weren't so EVIL

[shanen]

I'm just so sick and tired of problems without solutions, and the google's abuse of YOUR privacy is an ENORMOUS problem, and it's only getting worse. However, there is an obvious solution, if only the google weren't so EVIL and would consider implementing it. Remember the google's new motto: "All your attention belong to us", but...

The solution would be an option to invert email storage while still supporting ads. Here is one obvious way to implement it:

The email is stored on your computer and analyzed on your computer. Candidate ads are available and your computer decides which ads to download in accord with YOUR preferences, not the google's.

That's just a short elevator-speech summary, but there are lots of options that could be added, and by clever use of the defaults, I'm sure that the google will still control us anyway. Notwithstanding, by offering the options, at least the google could defend itself from the lawsuit.

Let me give a pie-in-the-sky configuration that I would like: All my email would be copied to each of my computers that is large enough to hold it, but all encryption and decryption for the syncing would be done on my computers, and the google would only handle the message exchanges. If one of my computers (such as a smartphone) is too small, then the latest (or whitelisted) email would be stored on that device and I would be able to choose where that device would get older email if it needs to. I might want to leave one of my larger computers on line for that purpose, or I might choose to let google hold the email (with or without encryption), or I might choose to put the email database on an independent server that I trust (and in a country that I also trust, which would certainly NOT be Donald Trump's America).

The next optional improvement would fix the in-your-face model of advertising by auctioning a SMALL amount of my time for ads, but the google is way too EVIL to go there. Why would the google risk changing the game they are already winning? I think we have to pray for the google's destruction at this point... That seems to be the only real solution to the cancerous monster the google has become.

Re:There is a solution--if the google weren't so E

[EmeraldBot]

I'm just so sick and tired of problems without solutions, and the google's abuse of YOUR privacy is an ENORMOUS problem, and it's only getting worse. However, there is an obvious solution, if only the google weren't so EVIL and would consider implementing it. Remember the google's new motto: "All your attention belong to us", but...

The solution would be an option to invert email storage while still supporting ads. Here is one obvious way to implement it:

The email is stored on your computer and analyzed on your computer. Candidate ads are available and your computer decides which ads to download in accord with YOUR preferences, not the google's.

That's just a short elevator-speech summary, but there are lots of options that could be added, and by clever use of the defaults, I'm sure that the google will still control us anyway. Notwithstanding, by offering the options, at least the google could defend itself from the lawsuit.

Let me give a pie-in-the-sky configuration that I would like: All my email would be copied to each of my computers that is large enough to hold it, but all encryption and decryption for the syncing would be done on my computers, and the google would only handle the message exchanges. If one of my computers (such as a smartphone) is too small, then the latest (or whitelisted) email would be stored on that device and I would be able to choose where that device would get older email if it needs to. I might want to leave one of my larger computers on line for that purpose, or I might choose to let google hold the email (with or without encryption), or I might choose to put the email database on an independent server that I trust (and in a country that I also trust, which would certainly NOT be Donald Trump's America).

The next optional improvement would fix the in-your-face model of advertising by auctioning a SMALL amount of my time for ads, but the google is way too EVIL to go there. Why would the google risk changing the game they are already winning? I think we have to pray for the google's destruction at this point... That seems to be the only real solution to the cancerous monster the google has become.

I believe a solution that's sort of similar to what you're going after already exists: Proton Mail. It's an email service that encrypts and decrypts mail locally, and only uses the mail part of the service to store it. As a bonus, it actually lacks ads completely - the only drawback is that space is somewhat limited. If Google bothers you, it's worth checking out.

Can't parse article text

[blibbo]

Does this sentence make sense?

From both the article and the summary...

"On April 29, another 180 filed a separate lawsuit making the same claim: that Google's Apps for Education, which provided them with official university email accounts to use for school and personal communication, allowed Google until April 2014 to scan their emails without their consent for advertising purposes."

I get to "until April 2014", and my brain won't parse it. What was/wasn't promised before April 2014 and what was/wasn't delivered? Was the situation before April 2014 undesirable? Was the situation after April 2014 undesirable? Maybe it's just me, but the wording seems really unclear.

Re:Cheaper Paid Email

[Killall -9 Bash]

Google is dying. Like late-90's era Microsoft, it has forgotten how to Innovate, and now relies on expanding their crap culture into new product types.

I don't think Google will actually DIE, but they're going to take a bit of a tumble soon. MS, Amazon, and Facebook are all looking at Google's lunch with hunger in their eyes.

Would you say that they were...

[The-Ixian]

Scroogled?

Just another 800 pound gorilla...

[martinfb]

Google is so big and the fines so insignificant that it likely pays google to scan and analyze whether legal or not. Sure - fine for $400 while I make thousands (per instance).
Such is corporate corruption in the USA these days. Individuals have no rights. IF YOU WANT THEM BACK You know who can get it going: Bernie.

Re:There is a solution--if the google weren't so E

[shanen]

You didn't say anything about the business model of Proton Mail. There needs to be some foundation under it. While I am not saying that I like ads, various business models involving advertising do make sense.

Re:Privacy, FOIA, trade secrets

[Sir Holo]

And, if you're doing research at a *publicly funded* research institution, odds are that those valuable ideas actually belong to UC, not you. If your research is federally funded, then under Bayh-Dole, UC keeps the rights (or at least has the option to do so). So those "patentable ideas" don't belong to you anyway.

Yes, yes, yes. But if a group at another University steals them, then they have stolen from the UC system.

I never claimed to have avoided signing the standard IP Declaration and Assignation. But if my group got scooped by another group, who spied on us, it could be a huge financial hit for my employing institution.