Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Judge Rejects Google Deal Over Email Scanning (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the come-better-prepared dept.

A federal judge in San Francisco slammed a legal settlement that proposed to pay $2.2 million to lawyers, but nothing to consumers who had the contents of their email scanned by Google without their knowledge or permission. From a report: In a 6-page order, Judge Lucy Koh told Google and class action attorneys the proposed settlement was insufficient, in part because it failed to clearly tell consumers what the search giant had done. "This notice is difficult to understand and does not clearly disclose the fact that Google intercepts, scans and analyzes the content of emails sent by non-Gmail users to Gmail users for the purpose of creating user profiles of the Gmail users to create targeted advertising for the Gmail users," Koh wrote.

48 comments

  1. Nork by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Pork

  2. Lawyers get rich... by torkus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...and only the lawyers get rich. When will people learn?

    Heck, they got themselves a pay day and didn't even get a clear ANSWER for the consumers.

    --
    You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    1. Re:Lawyers get rich... by ET3D · · Score: 2

      Well, they don't get the money yet. They'd get rich in the end, sure, but at least consumers might get something too, thanks to this judge.

    2. Re:Lawyers get rich... by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

      Consumers are going to get, at best, a notice at the top of their Gmail login with information about the settlement and a reiteration of what almost all of them already knew: Google looks for keywords and alters its advertising accordingly. They're not going to get a payout, or even a coupon or discount code good for purchase of Google products.

      The lawsuit was someone looking for a payout, and the settlement is Google trying to get out of it as cheaply as possible. As torkus said, the lawyers are the winners here. For everyone else, life just goes on.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  3. IAAL, GMM. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am a lawyer, give me money.

  4. Finally! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Finally an enlightened ruling!

  5. Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by barc0001 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oh, GMail is free? Hmmm...

    This is a horseshit waste of money and legal resources to enrich lawyers. Even before I signed up for GMail in beta (yes that long ago) it was well known that GMail was using the contents of mail to display targeted ads. That's why it was being offered as a service. It's in the TOS.

    Sorry to hear "consumers" who got a service for free are too damn stupid to realize how it's being paid for. Just wait till someone tells them how Facebook pays for itself...

    1. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sorry to hear "consumers"

      I'm old enough to remember when I was called a customer.

      That's all passe now I guess.

    2. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Mikkeles · · Score: 4, Informative

      FTFS (emphasis added):

      This notice is difficult to understand and does not clearly disclose the fact that Google intercepts, scans and analyzes the content of emails sent by non-Gmail users to Gmail users...

      --
      Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
    3. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't a customer someone who buys products or services?
      I've never given Google one thin dime. Their customers are those who purchase advertising.

    4. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en

      "With features like Priority Inbox, we automatically process your messages to help you sort through the unimportant messages that get in your way. We use a similar approach with ads. For example, if you’ve recently received a lot of messages about photography or cameras, a deal from a local camera store might be interesting. On the other hand, if you’ve reported these messages as spam, you probably don’t want to see such a deal.... The process by which ads are shown in Gmail is fully automated. Nobody reads your emails in order to show you ads."

      Seems pretty clear to me.

      > emails sent by non-Gmail users

      So, people sign up for Gmail and never expect to get email from anyone outside of other Gmail accounts? What exactly do they think an email account is for?

    5. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      customer
      kstmr/Submit
      noun
      1.
      a person or organization that buys goods or services from a store or business.

      You paid how much for that Gmail account again? $0?

    6. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you cannot abdicate your constitutional rights

    7. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by smooth+wombat · · Score: 0

      Constitutional rights, for the most part, apply only about the government. For example, a business is free to limit speech or prohibit people from carrying firearms on their premises.

      Casinos can prevent you from coming on to their property even though a casino is open to the public (above the age of 21). They don't even have to give a reason.

      In the case of Google, there is no 9th Amendment violation of your right to privacy since the government isn't involved. You are using their service, free of charge. They make the rules.

      --
      We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
    8. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by gweihir · · Score: 1

      You forgot that this is about people sending email to Gmail users, not about the Gmail users. The latter accepted this in the TOU. The former did not.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    9. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      Oh, you mean the message they transmitted across a public network in plaintext that might cross multiple countries' boundaries before arriving at the Gmail MX server farm? I can see how security minded they are.

      When you send an email you have no control over what the recipient will do with it, arguing that you didn't accept the TOS of the recipient's mail system is asinine. What about sending mail to people at corporations, do you "accept" their mail retention and scanning policies before sending as well?

    10. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't know about you, but my mail server is setup to send encrypted when the remote end will accept it. Google happens to not only allow it, but show a lock on the email if it was sent encrypted.

    11. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >it was well known that GMail was using the contents of mail to display targeted ads.

      I got on back then too, and if you remember it freaked many people out, big time. They protested and complained to Google so much that the person who wrote the text scanning algorithm literally had to announce & describe that it was an automatic reader to look for key words, which were then used to serve text ads. It was not 'reading & understanding' the emails nor a real person reading & understanding the emails.

      The guy was a coding genius but not very social or personable, so that's a great person to hire for work with machines- but a poor human-touch and he had no idea his work would affect people so much.

      Anyway, it's not like many people run their own email servers like you & I. And many digital services know this, and take advantage of this. So yeah even when it's free that is no license to run over your customers. Don't blame the consumers here.

    12. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not like many people run their own email servers, many digital services know this, and take advantage of this. So yeah even when it's free that is no license to run over your customers. Don't blame the consumers.

    13. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by gweihir · · Score: 1

      You have apparently no clue what you are talking about. First, TLS can be used with SMTP. Second, snooping on Internet backbones is actually pretty hard to do. Third, the target ISP is harvesting _their_ messages without ever getting _their_ consent, and that happens to be illegal.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    14. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by guruevi · · Score: 1

      I didn't yet get into the details of the story, but I think this is the lawsuit that started a few years ago where people having a contract and paying for Gmail (eg. business and education) were promised they weren't going to be scanned yet Google continued scanning them regardless. This was quite a kerfuffle for a few Universities a few years back.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    15. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by torkus · · Score: 2

      If you're getting something for free then you're probably the product, not the consumer.

      Ladies night at the bar? No, you aren't drinking for free. You're the product being sold to the men.

      Free email? No, you aren't getting a service that millions are spent to develop and run for free. You're the product being sold to the advertisers, data conglomerates, and so on.

      So, in reality you have a very distinct, real-money recurring value. You may not be able to personally realize direct monetary income from it, but you're certainly giving 'it' to google to sell.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
    16. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by zlives · · Score: 1

      the article says all non-gmail to gmail email is scanned. does that include email sent from google apps (paid) accounts? also what about PFI info especially medical info?

    17. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you send me a mail, I (probably, usually) cannot publish it publicly (due to copyright), but
      I am allowed to show it to others, have an assistant read it, or even to have an automatic assistant scan it for me. By using
      gmail I employ Google to do this scanning, etc. for me. I'd hate to have to read all mail sent to me personally; spammers would love it though!

    18. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by barc0001 · · Score: 1

      TLS is not yet required for traffic and while it's made great strides in adoption, that is a very recent development. As of two years ago, Google themselves claimed half of received SMTP traffic was in plaintext, and only in January of this year did traffic cross the 80% threshold. When Gmail was created almost all of it was plaintext.

      2014
      https://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2014/06/transparency-report-protecting-emails.html

      Now
      https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/saferemail/

      >Second, snooping on Internet backbones is actually pretty hard to do.

      Unless you work for an alphabet agency. Or one of their contractors. Or one of the people who has the jewels of the backdoors the alphabet agencies put into backbone equipment surreptitiously:

      https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwald-nsa-tampers-us-internet-routers-snowden
      https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/

      > Third, the target ISP is harvesting _their_ messages without ever getting _their_ consent, and that happens to be illegal.

      The target 'ISP' can also easily be corporations when you send mail to them - as many run their own IT operations - and they can and will do whatever they like with them. Plus, do link to the law that makes this illegal, I'd be very interested to see such transnational legislation.

    19. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

      When you see commercials that really, actually, fascinate, amuse, or interest or have good music for you etc . Click on them. At the very least you will be surround with something you like!

    20. Re: Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was not well known however that non-gmail users would have their emails scanned too

    21. Re: Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      Was there ever an expectation of privacy in email? From day one everyone knew everyone and his brother can intercept and read email.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    22. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

      It's still plaintext at the sending and receiving points unless someone used S/MIME or PGP.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    23. Re:Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

      If looking at the content of messages sent by someone outside of your servers is illegal, then all automated mail filtering at the server level is illegal. The scammers certainly don't consent to you looking at their spam/phishing/malware to see if it should be sent off to another folder or even outright deleted.

      There's nothing illegal about what Google is doing with Gmail. You can argue that there are ethical or moral reasons against it, but to argue legalities, especially without citing the criminal law it's allegedly breaking, is to undermine a critical part of modern information security.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    24. Re: Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yay,someone else realised that this was about non Gmail users..
      There will be a backlash one day against Google,possibly not until there are two moons in the sky,but it will happen eventualy..

    25. Re: Give the consumers a refund on what they paid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was there ever an expectation of privacy in email?

      Oh, yes. Many people (wrongly) assume that email is private.

      From day one everyone knew everyone and his brother can intercept and read email.

      Far from everyone knew, nor do they know now, that anyone (in principle - any many, in practice) can intercept and read email.

      You are conflating people with technical knowledge and the general public.

      The general public is horrendously ignorant about these things.

      I even have colleagues, within an IT company, who after more than 15 years still do not understand these things.

      The general public is (much) worse off.

  6. Class actions are scams by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The lawyers get paid, the company gets indemnified from future lawsuits, the victims get some shitty coupons.

    I strongly suspect that most class action suits are engineered by the companies themselves. They get free immunity for a relatively small payout to some lawyers.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Class actions are scams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't go THAT far into tinfoil hat territory. If companies wanted class action suits, they wouldn't have started adding clauses in TOS agreements trying to forbid users from joining class action suits.

    2. Re:Class actions are scams by ripvlan · · Score: 1

      I can that being true - but think it is engineered by the lawyers to make money. They smell something - get somebody to toss up a complaint - and turn it into a class action.

      I've even seen late night ads "Have you or someone you know been harmed by product XYZ - if so call our toll free number 1-800-make-us-rich" They are fishing for customers.

      I remember years ago being involved in a class action with VW. It was "possible" for the sunroof to leak if I didn't clean out the drain lines --- which wasn't documented in the owners manual/service guide. Somebody actually had this problem and got wet. Lawyers were paid (big) millions of dollars and the rest of us received a New Page to place in our service guide --- plus a coupon for $50 off a future purchase. Not cash...a coupon. Not even a "free sunroof service" $50 bucks off. Geez - I get offers from VW in the mail all the time "Get your car serviced with us --- 10% off your next oil change or 20% off next service cycle" (which usually costs $200)

      They come every other month -- for free. No class action required.

    3. Re:Class actions are scams by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      The lawyers get paid, the company gets indemnified from future lawsuits, the victims get some shitty coupons.

      I strongly suspect that most class action suits are engineered by the companies themselves. They get free immunity for a relatively small payout to some lawyers

      A class action lawsuit is designed to handle the case where individual victims may not be damaged "enough" to justify bringing a lawsuit. But there are lot of victims where it's economically viable to group together everyone as a class to punish the company.

      Think of it this way - let's say you sign a contract for new cell phone, $20/month. But then you get your bill and find it's $21. You can call them over and over again and an hour later get your $1 back.Or just forget about it, since in the end it'll be $24 extra. It certainly isn't enough to bring them to court about.

      Now, let's say the carrier did this on every customer - if they had a million customers, that's an extra million dollars a month. Enough to make it worthwhile to ALWAYS overcharge people. Individually, no one would be hurt too much - after a few months staying on the phone for an hour to get back $1 is too much work, and they can pocket the extra cash.

      At what point is it too much? Perhaps next year they'll overcharge people $2, making a cool 2 million extra dollars every month. It's only $48 people will pay over a 2 year contract, so chance of being sued is low. It's certainly worthwhile to actually do it - free money. Because individually, no one will sue, and you can get away ripping people off.

      Hence the class action - companies would get away with this because the damage to individual victims is too low to justify any one of them bringing forward a suit. But collectively, the amount is enough to go after.

      As for why the victims get crappy rewards? Well, the whole lawsuit is paid for by the lawyers so all the risk is on them, and the victims themselves are basically getting it for free. Given the victims weren't likely to pursue litigation in the first place, it just means they get reimbursed for free - no risk and it's more than they were getting anyways.

      You are free to exclude yourself from any class action you're involved with and bring about your own lawsuit, but chances are you're not going to get much better, especially after time, attorney's fees, etc

    4. Re:Class actions are scams by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      the victims get some shitty coupons

      Actually in this case the victims got a full 100% refund for what they paid for their service.

    5. Re:Class actions are scams by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

      Then by the same token, we should get indemnified from future speeding or parking tickets if we get one! What's fair is fair!

    6. Re: Class actions are scams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They paid with their privacy. Their emails didn't get unscanned, so no, they didn't get a refund.

    7. Re:Class actions are scams by whit3 · · Score: 1

      The lawyers get paid, the company gets indemnified from future lawsuits, the victims get some shitty coupons.

      Well, the judge says this particular class action settlement is inadequate on basically those grounds (the victims are NOT getting coupons, or anything else).

      The class action lawyers are asked to put in some up-to-date factfinding, and find a way to at least tell the victims what happened, in exchange for Google telling them that the worst is over. Well, technically it's over, the victims won't see any noticeable difference.

    8. Re:Class actions are scams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're misusing the word "indemnified," and obviously are mistaken about its use and definition. No one and no class action result is compensating a company for financial loss should they be sued in the future. "Indemnified," does not mean "protected." Let me help you. Let's say I sell you a used car, and as part of the deal, I will indemnify you for any flat tires for six months. All that means is that if you have a flat, I will financially compensate you for a new tire. It doesn't mean that I am protecting your tires from flats.

    9. Re:Class actions are scams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This case is about -non-Gmail users, so the victims never signed up for Google's abuses.

      Just like if the free "Reading for Comprehension" school was sued for spying on people who never attended and we dismissed your grievances because you never attended!

  7. $2 Million Fine on Gooogle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What does that do?

    Why didn't the judge order them to stop acting in this manner if it's infact illegal?

  8. Huh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Wow, a giant, much-national company spying on my data? I never thought that this could happen!

    What Terms of Service?

    - Posted from Windows 10

    1. Re: Huh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do the entire industry and consumer base a disservice by comparing OS telemetry to reading emails from paid customers they agreed not to scan. But hey, Microsoft sucks right?

  9. Yes, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... disclose the fact that Google intercepts, scans and analyzes the content ...

    Yes, Google (and others) should have been more obvious about their intentions but one can blame the US lack of 'truth in advertising' for that. In fact, Google didn't lie and didn't deliberately hide what they were doing, so the court has little power on that issue.

    ... nothing to consumers ...

    What did the consumers lose by this attempt to monetize their data: Fast-food coupons? Receiving misplaced adverts for casual sex dating, butt-plugs and penis-enlarging machines is a long way from suffering and personal damages. Subscribers didn't pay money and a half-hearted attempt at due diligence would inform every subscriber that Google was providing limited privacy. Should Google stop spying on its subscribers, those facts remain because Google still has their personal correspondence.

    ... failed to clearly tell consumers ...

    So the best outcome of this court case is a heart-felt confession? I like the legal precedent it sets but I think the courts should be tackling bigger issues.

    1. Re:Yes, but by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

      Settlements don't set precedent.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  10. You can reject Google ads easily by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject: Prevention = best medicine (what u can't touch can't hurt u) via APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    Ads/script & malware rob speed/security/privacy

    Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).

    Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!

    Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!

    * Via what u NATIVELY have in the IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!

    APK

    P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/