Wake up. GMail is the worst of all services they offer. Google has admitted already (you should read their privacy policy) that Google scans and stores all your (g)email.
They don't need an ip-address because you log on, which is more accurate then your ip. Google is able to connect the (eternal)-cookie to your ip to your Google account to your bank/paypal account. From the moment you create a Google account the certainty of previous identity guesses, such as ip cookie and user-agent increases tremendously, and they will be able to reprocess previously collected information.
Not showing your ip in the mail-header should not provide you with any level of comfort.
There is only one algorithm that really matters: For each page in results
if page.HasAdwords=true and Not page.content=junk
page.MoneyRank= page.clickthroughrate * page.AdwordsValue
results.add page
else
Ignore
Endif next page
Google offering email to ISP's does not surprise me. Google is investing the majority of their advertising profits into bandwidth and storage. There are a range of reasons why it is a logical next step for Google to become your next ISP:
They already host all websites (Google Cache). Since they already got storage, check-out, advertising, a HTML-editor(they might need an extra acquisition to really pursue this successfully), statistics and forms (Google grid), it is a small step for them to offer free hosting with all the tools you need. So the costs remain the same but the income doubles
Offering free hosting will offer Google huge cost savings in processor-capacity and bandwidth. That is because they don't have to crawl sites anymore, because they already got them! This will save them exactly 25 times the size of a site, per site in terms of bandwith.
They can even better trace users and thus increase advertising accuracy and income.
Google does not only want to control Awareness and Interest of end-users, but also Trial and Adoption, so they can make money on purchases as well (Google check-out), not only advertising.
Huge investments in storage, capacity and double-click are enabling them to do so
Offering end-users bandwidth and connectivity, will dramatically increase Google's' ability to track behavior and allows them to be even more efficient
Being better in advertising and having more economies of scale allows Google to compete successfully with the ISP's
So their actions over the last few years are completely logical from this perspective. From an ISP's perspective and an end-user perspective they are (or should) be terrifying.
In principle you are the author of your own life and therefore you should own the data about your behavior and your identity. I wonder if putting a copyright notice like:"This data may not be used otherwise than for the sole purpose of responding to this request. All rights reserved " as part of your outgoing http-headers will be a viable option to protect yourself. In principle it should be, because you are the author of this request. If enough people would use it even a class-action against violators should be an option and make the measure more effective.
Since W3C's privacy policy standard (P3P) is driven by Double Click among others I expect very little support for end users from that direction, especially since it has been acquired by Google.
Is there anyone who can support or reject my idea from a legal perspective? Technically you could use several of the plug-ins mentioned above to inject the statement. A website with sample statements would help as well.
I never said it would be inevitable. The whole point is that that it has happened more than once in the past fifty years and companies with a big responsibility like Google should think about and act on these issues, especially when they link themselves to organizations like the US Holocaust Memorial Museum!
Over the past few years they have done the exact opposite and these are not conspiracy theories or Google bashing but just plain facts:
Collect your data without permission, not even opt out! and use a permanent cookie that expires in 2038
Log every click you make on any website via the Google tool bar
Link hits on Google analytics scripts to your ID (via the cookie)
Censor information on behalf of various governments, including the US
Not make any statements about which data they collect or what they do with it
If a local law would force Google to hand over the data of people I am confident that they will. You are confident that it they wont't, which from my point of view is naive. It's the difference between the real world and the Truman Show.
Maybe you don't see it happening but your children will. The moment you see it happening you are too late. Maybe this reference provides you with an alternative insight.
If I would live in the states this scare the shit out of me because the next...and the next...and the next...and the next presidents would have the same rights.
It is easier and much cheaper for Google not to store the data and exclude even the option of their data being abused beyond their power. This is exactly the difference between not being evil (and ignore what you know) and being good. Or the difference between buying a gun to protect yourself and not buying a gun to protect others (and eventually yourself)...
Despite their undoubtedly noble intentions, Googles' rather naive and geekish management does not realize that in fact, by logging and storing everyones personal details, behavior and habits they have created the ultimate foundation for the next Holocaust.
The reason why the identification of Jews in some European countries like the Netherlands was so effective and fast, was because of the quality of the (paper)archives with personal records. With the electronically available and very detailed records that Google maintains, identification of people to be prosecuted will be a matter of days, not years. No matter if it is about Jews, Arabs, 'terrorists', anti-republicans or any other group of people that share characteristics that are disliked by the people with power.
Assuming that future governments or hackers can be fully trusted to respect current copyright and privacy legislation is a complete denial of history.
Larry and Sergey, maybe it is an idea to sit down in your library and read this book that you have scanned yourselves: 'National Identification Systems: Essays in Opposition'
It appears to me that the proposed solution is not resistant to attacks and abuse. Reason is that it measures 'edits' as opposed to the reputation of the author. A better aproach would be to implement some trust metric like Ralph Lévien has proposed to Wikipedia and already implemented in a Wiki(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advogato).
Since you are the author of your own life, the copyright of all data connected to you should be yours en you should get the money and give permission. Currently companies claim the copyright on your personal data!
Likewise is it strange that for instance Google and the ad-sense publishers are making money on your data, which they collect without your permission and store forever. In fact they steal it from you and don't honour the author of the data.
Jigsaw has much better ethics and it is at least transparent what information is collected, how they collect it and what is done with it. That is the way it should be! They could make a giant leap if they would reward people who have provided their own data, everytime the data or advertising is sold and thus respect the authorship of the provider and original owner of the data.
Slashdot Mirror
Wake up. GMail is the worst of all services they offer. Google has admitted already (you should read their privacy policy) that Google scans and stores all your (g)email. They don't need an ip-address because you log on, which is more accurate then your ip. Google is able to connect the (eternal)-cookie to your ip to your Google account to your bank/paypal account. From the moment you create a Google account the certainty of previous identity guesses, such as ip cookie and user-agent increases tremendously, and they will be able to reprocess previously collected information. Not showing your ip in the mail-header should not provide you with any level of comfort.
There is only one algorithm that really matters:
For each page in results
if page.HasAdwords=true and Not page.content=junk
page.MoneyRank= page.clickthroughrate * page.AdwordsValue
results.add page
else
Ignore
Endif
next page
results order by Moneyrank DESC
- They already host all websites (Google Cache). Since they already got storage, check-out, advertising, a HTML-editor(they might need an extra acquisition to really pursue this successfully), statistics and forms (Google grid), it is a small step for them to offer free hosting with all the tools you need. So the costs remain the same but the income doubles
- Offering free hosting will offer Google huge cost savings in processor-capacity and bandwidth. That is because they don't have to crawl sites anymore, because they already got them! This will save them exactly 25 times the size of a site, per site in terms of bandwith.
- They can even better trace users and thus increase advertising accuracy and income.
- Google does not only want to control Awareness and Interest of end-users, but also Trial and Adoption, so they can make money on purchases as well (Google check-out), not only advertising.
- Huge investments in storage, capacity and double-click are enabling them to do so
- Offering end-users bandwidth and connectivity, will dramatically increase Google's' ability to track behavior and allows them to be even more efficient
- Being better in advertising and having more economies of scale allows Google to compete successfully with the ISP's
So their actions over the last few years are completely logical from this perspective. From an ISP's perspective and an end-user perspective they are (or should) be terrifying.I wonder if putting a copyright notice like:"This data may not be used otherwise than for the sole purpose of responding to this request. All rights reserved " as part of your outgoing http-headers will be a viable option to protect yourself.
In principle it should be, because you are the author of this request. If enough people would use it even a class-action against violators should be an option and make the measure more effective.
Since W3C's privacy policy standard (P3P) is driven by Double Click among others I expect very little support for end users from that direction, especially since it has been acquired by Google.
Is there anyone who can support or reject my idea from a legal perspective? Technically you could use several of the plug-ins mentioned above to inject the statement. A website with sample statements would help as well.
Over the past few years they have done the exact opposite and these are not conspiracy theories or Google bashing but just plain facts:
If a local law would force Google to hand over the data of people I am confident that they will. You are confident that it they wont't, which from my point of view is naive. It's the difference between the real world and the Truman Show.
If I would live in the states this scare the shit out of me because the next...and the next...and the next...and the next presidents would have the same rights.
It is easier and much cheaper for Google not to store the data and exclude even the option of their data being abused beyond their power. This is exactly the difference between not being evil (and ignore what you know) and being good. Or the difference between buying a gun to protect yourself and not buying a gun to protect others (and eventually yourself)...
Despite their undoubtedly noble intentions, Googles' rather naive and geekish management does not realize that in fact, by logging and storing everyones personal details, behavior and habits they have created the ultimate foundation for the next Holocaust. The reason why the identification of Jews in some European countries like the Netherlands was so effective and fast, was because of the quality of the (paper)archives with personal records. With the electronically available and very detailed records that Google maintains, identification of people to be prosecuted will be a matter of days, not years. No matter if it is about Jews, Arabs, 'terrorists', anti-republicans or any other group of people that share characteristics that are disliked by the people with power. Assuming that future governments or hackers can be fully trusted to respect current copyright and privacy legislation is a complete denial of history. Larry and Sergey, maybe it is an idea to sit down in your library and read this book that you have scanned yourselves: 'National Identification Systems: Essays in Opposition'
It appears to me that the proposed solution is not resistant to attacks and abuse. Reason is that it measures 'edits' as opposed to the reputation of the author. A better aproach would be to implement some trust metric like Ralph Lévien has proposed to Wikipedia and already implemented in a Wiki(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advogato).
Since you are the author of your own life, the copyright of all data connected to you should be yours en you should get the money and give permission. Currently companies claim the copyright on your personal data! Likewise is it strange that for instance Google and the ad-sense publishers are making money on your data, which they collect without your permission and store forever. In fact they steal it from you and don't honour the author of the data. Jigsaw has much better ethics and it is at least transparent what information is collected, how they collect it and what is done with it. That is the way it should be! They could make a giant leap if they would reward people who have provided their own data, everytime the data or advertising is sold and thus respect the authorship of the provider and original owner of the data.