

Google: Gmail users ‘have no legitimate expectation of privacy’ - ferdo
http://rt.com/usa/google-gmail-motion-privacy-453/

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anxious
Wow, talk about taking things out of context, but I guess this is what you get
from "consumer watchdog" via RT.

The "quote" in question is that of a lawyer citing a previous ruling (they do
that a lot) to counter a specific allegation:

 _“a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he
voluntarily turns over tothird parties.” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735,
743-44 (1979)._

The whole case is built on trying to make physical mail (snail mail) analogies
applicable to email, they are accusing Google of "reading" emails when it's
computers "parsing" text. That particular part of the motion is in response to
the argument that non-Gmail users class action is valid since they didn't
agree to the TOS. Google counters that "automated processing" is part of
webmail.

Link to relevant page: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/160041493/Google-
Motion-061313#pag...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/160041493/Google-
Motion-061313#page=27)

It's either the author have never seen a court briefing before or he’s just
pushing an agenda.

The case is about Gmail "scanning" emails to target ads, Google is arguing
(rightly so) that machines parsing emails is not equivalent to "reading" it,
and that "automated processes" are responsible for spam filtering, spell
checking and other features.

The entire motion, read it and make you own conclusions:
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/160041493/Google-
Motion-061313](http://www.scribd.com/doc/160041493/Google-Motion-061313)

