
Google filing says Gmail users have no expectation of privacy - uladzislau
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57598420-93/google-filing-says-gmail-users-have-no-expectation-of-privacy/
======
sgentle
This is completely misleading. The article actually says this:

    
    
      Plaintiffs in the case contend that Google's automated
      scanning of e-mail represents an illegal interception of
      their electronic communications without their consent. 
      However, Google, which uses automated scanning to filter 
      spam and deliver targeted advertising to its users, noted 
      that plaintiffs consented to the practice in exchange for 
      the e-mail services. Google goes on to say that courts have 
      held that all e-mail users "necessarily give implied consent 
      to the automated processing of their emails."
    

This is the same old "algorithms reading my email is a violation of privacy"
argument from back when Gmail started. Ignoring the bullshit headline,
Google's argument comes down to the following:

1\. Machines scanning your email doesn't violate privacy 2\. Even if it did,
you consent to it when you sign up for a Gmail account 3\. It's impossible to
provide email hosting without some level of automated processing of messages

Google's clearly in the right here, and the various outlets reporting this
story need to learn some journalistic ethics.

~~~
johnchristopher
> 1\. Machines scanning your email doesn't violate privacy

Depends what the machine or the operator is doing with the result of that
scan.

> 2\. Even if it did, you consent to it when you sign up for a Gmail account

Gmail users consent to scan from Gmail but if google holds in court that
consent is implied to the automated processing of emails then someone might
think this content extends to any machine touching the mail on its trip to the
recipient. Which is not the same as "scanning mail content to get useful
keywords for better ads".

I wonder if google is allowed to scan mails it has received but the user
hasn't yet opened. It means google has access to the user's pen buddy mail
without that pen buddy's consent. I agree consent from the user is given when
he reads any mail that include or not his correspondent text But that
correspondent might be using another mail provider and my point is that he
hasn't given explicit consent to google to scan its mail... the one allowing
that is the gmail user.

What happens if I say to my correspondent "don't share this" and he opens the
mail. Has he betrayed me by sharing that mail with google ? If google has
indexed that mail content before I (the gmail user) had a chance to read it...
did google violate my correspondent's privacy ?

Is sending an email to a gmail address an implied consent to have mail read
and indexed for ad targeting ? Excluding necessary and really automated non-
profit machine analysis such as white listing, anti-spam, virus, domain
verification, stp check, etc.

Automated processing (for making sure it's delivered) of emails certainly
doesn't imply scanning content to build a social graph and an ad profile.

~~~
Oletros
> I wonder if google is allowed to scan mails it has received but the user
> hasn't yet opened

Well, this is how anti spam filter works

~~~
johnchristopher
For spam, yes. But does it implicitly allow Google to scan for building a user
profile of a gmail user ? And of a sender from a different service ?

Why would google be allowed to build a johnchristopher@fastmail ad profile
based on the mail sent to my gmail correspondents ?

The analogy with snail mail is blurry because every snail mail exchange
doesn't include the full transcript of the conversation.

------
zmmmmm
The headline is deliberately inflammatory, leaving off the "turned over to
third parties".

The actual statement itself is almost a tautology - when you give someone
information, you don't expect that the information is private _from them_
because you just _gave it to them_.

------
moomin
They should put that phrase on the login page.

~~~
acqq
Eric Schmidt, then Google CEO, openly said something in that direction in
2009:

[http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-secrets-are-for-
filthy-...](http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-secrets-are-for-filthy-
people)

 _If you have something that you don 't want anyone to know, maybe you
shouldn't be doing it in the first place._

~~~
cyphax
What a terrible, terrible "argument". As though anything one might want to
hide is something they "shouldn't be doing in the first place". Yeah you
shouldn't have been raped but now that you have, you can't tell anybody about
it through OUR service. Because we just don't care. Alcoholic? Don't count on
OUR service, or any other service on the internet OR your home phone to get
any support without anybody finding out. Not to mention: shouldn't have been
doing that.

There is NOTHING wrong with having stuff to hide. I have stuff to hide. Didn't
break to law, either. This is why I'm moving away from GMail, and Google in
general, save for some searches every now and then and perhaps image search.
"Don't be evil"? More like "We don't care".

Privacy IS important; anybody who says not is definitely someone I don't
understand at all.

~~~
mayanksinghal
Nobody is denying anyone's _legal right_ to privacy. Eric Schmidt was setting
expectations about it, when he made that statement. You would have known if
gawker didn't (1) Made their own value judgement. (private => filth) and
equate privacy to security (2) Quoted the entire statement, instead of the
part that fits the story that they want to tell.

In case you have't read it a hundred times before, he continues to say "But if
you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines,
including Google, do retain this information for some time. And it’s
important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the
Patriot Act. It is possible that information could be made available to the
authorities."

~~~
cyphax
Thanks for pointing out possible nuances. Unfortunately:

(1) I searched for this exact phrase (using Google :P) hoping to find the
nuance to prove me wrong. I found it on Wikipedia [1] as well as on The
Huffington Post [2], the latter actually containing the video in which he says
these things. The problem is this: adding "but if you really need that kind of
privacy, [you're screwed]" doesn't change the meaning of "if you have
something to hide, you must've done something you shouldn't be doing" and that
is still utterly, UTTERLY narrow minded.

(2) The terrible, terrible naive argument is made a lot today by all kinds of
people (even by my own father, who is generally a huge role model for me),
making my criticism of it, unfortunately, quite relevant towards today's
spying of the US government. Even if Schmidt HAD added nuance to take away my
criticism of what he said -- which he either didn't, or I haven't found it --,
it would've stood as a more general criticism. I'm not convinced that Schmidt
doesn't still stand by what he said back then, but it can't be too hard for
him to make a statement if he feels his views have been improperly represented
by the media. If he has, I would love to know about it. As it stands right
now, I just cannot have private communication through any service which Google
provides, and that means I actually might have to be careful about what I
write, and THAT is very wrong in my opinion.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt)

[2] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/07/google-ceo-on-
priva...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/07/google-ceo-on-privacy-
if_n_383105.html)

~~~
acqq
_that means I actually might have to be careful about what I write, and THAT
is very wrong in my opinion._

You have to be anyway, you are responsible for your actions and every action
of everybody can result in something. The problem is what we as society want
to be acceptable results, that is, where we as society want to draw the line.

------
nullc
personally I was more amused by the "ordinary course of business" defense—
that an otherwise (as argued by the plaintiffs at least) unlawful activity
could somehow be made lawful by it being part of the defenses "ordinary course
of business".

I look forward to seeing bank robbers use that one. :P

------
itsbits
Few years back i lost my gmail id after some hacker deleted it which i used
for everything like my accounts, offer letters i received etc. Since then i
distributed my things in different places. I still use another gmail account
only for general purpose..i believe fastmail more than any other..ofcourse
recently i am loving outlook but still Microsoft is more non-trustable than
google..ain't it?...

------
QueLorean
Does anyone on Hacker News who still uses Gmail expect privacy?

~~~
northwest
Does anyone on Hacker News still use Gmail?

~~~
levosmetalo
What else would you recommend if you own your own domain? I _must_ have
webmail, IMAP, calendar, contact list, task list and seamless sync with
mobiles. And be free. And be outside of the US.

~~~
northwest
Not sure if they already allow having your own domain, but the rest is
covered: [https://mykolab.com/](https://mykolab.com/) based in non-EU country
Switzerland. Of course it's not free, but keep in mind: if it's free, you are
probably the product being sold.

If you need to use your own domain, set up your own server or VPS and install
[https://kolab.org/](https://kolab.org/) (it's all listed on [https://prism-
break.org/](https://prism-break.org/))

