Gmail too Creepy Article
I'm not sure if most of you have read this article before, but i came across it yesterday and figured I'd post about it here since many people (including my self), have a gmail account, or are otherwise looking for one.
Rundown of the Article (bold), and my opinions:
1. Problem 1: Gmail is nearly immortal - Electronic Communications Privacy Act protects Emails as private property of an individual for up to 180 days, after that they are subject to retrieval the issuing of subpoena (Congress can issue subpoena's forcing people to appear in the court of law). Basically the only thing going for this claim is the fact that Gmail offers 1GB storage. Aparently hotmail doesn't share this problem (based on what he's said) because they don't allow that much hosting space, and therefore illiminate the problem of people holding their email for more than 180 days. To me, this isn't any different than using Yahoo or Hotmail or whatever. The government would be able to issue subpoena's to those tech-firms as well. Anyway, isn't the use of a subpoena a demand from Congress to compel the testimony of witnesses in a trial? Have subpoena's ever been issued to Tech-Firms with large-scale mail hosting such as Hotmail, Yahoo, etc? This specific problem also claims that Google is distrustful because even when email messages are deleted, they can still be retrieved. Well isn't this true for just about any computer? They can retrieve any fucking file they want off a drive thats even been reformatted. I can see the validity of the problem, but also it's kind of irrelavent (if im correct that is) because it's true for any other mail hosting service. I'd be interested in finding out of Hotmail or Yahoo actually delete email messages when they are marked for deletion. Anyway, the problem that stands out for me is, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act; extend it, shit it should keep emails are private content as long as they are existant. Why is it right to expire the private state of an email after a certain amount of time?
2. Problem 2: Google's policies do not apply - Claims that Googles policies are bullshit because they don't say whether they WONT use their search engine to match keyterms from your emails and use them on their Ads. Basically people don't want their names and emails going on the ads and they think google has reserved the right to do that by not including that on the privacy contract. "Ads and links to related pages only appear alongside the message that they are targeted to, and are only shown when the Gmail user, whether sender or recipient, is viewing that particular message. No email content or other personally identifiable information is ever shared with advertisers." - From privacy policy.
That pretty much sums that up. The ad service can be used to generate ads based on relavent content, but your personal information or email will never be shared with advertisers. Sounds fair enough. I do see a sense of validity in that if government agencies can trace ads generated by certain messages that seem "threatening to nation security", that they would take advantage Google's storage space and demand to see said email after 180 days (I still don't understand if that is possible, but aparently it is).
3. Problem 3: A massive potential for abuse - Claims that the google Ad program has a potential for abuse because the government could take advantage of Googles matching services to track down "copyright abusers" and potential terrorists. The reason they claim this is such a problem is again because of the amount of storage google offers. So yeah, this is pretty much the same as the above problem, and the same answer applies i think. The only valid point is the fact that people are likely not to delete mail messages (not that will matter anyway because they are still retrievable), and the expiration of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, leaving just that.
4. Problem 4: Inappropriate ad matching - Basically this one states that Google could wrongfully match terms and display them as Advertisement. The example in the article was: In article about the Brandon Mayfield arrests that discussed how the FBI made the arrest with little evidence, Google formulated two ads, one mentions sexual assault charges (sex has nothing to do with the story), and the other is about anti-terrorism. This "problem" claims that it seems Google has allready convicted Brandon Mayfield and therefore made a statement to the rest of the interweb causing everybody in the world to believe Mayfield is a terrorist (going along with example they provided). This I find slightly retarded. He can't fucking blame google for something like that. All google does is search the content of the page, and show links that are appropriate to the content (that doesn't mean google reads the article, assumes mayfield is a fucking terrorist and gives you anti-terrorist career options); it means that google reads the article, finds the keywords of "terrorist", "arrested", "brandon mayfield", "bombing", and shows a link to Anti-terrorist careers. If you think GOOGLE is suggesting brandon mayfield is a
terrorist, you're fucking nutheaded; the news article is where the content is from. It's clear that Brandon Mayfield was viewed by the government as a potential terrorist, which is why he was arrested (obviously wrongfully arrested), and this was all put into an article, that GOOGLE interpreted (correctly).
My writings have naive and ignorance written all over them, but frankly i don't give a shit because I'm not that paranoid about google's aparent desire of world domination, or the government's role in taking advantage of that. The valid point i see in that whole article is that After 180 days, Emails are no longer protected as private messages under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act; and if anything should be changed, it's that. And google should probably add some little tidbits in their privacy act to make people happy.
Anyway, what do guys think about those problems? And if anybody could explain to me the process of how the government issues subpoena's to read your email, and under what conditions they have done that, i'd be happy :].
Flame away, and even if this is OFN it doesn't pass as that because i havn't seen anybody talk about this shit so stfu
Cliff Notes:
1. Some guy writes a whole bunch of shit on how Gmail is creepy and google is off for world-domination plot and government is going to take advantage.
2. Basically only valid point is that Electronic Communications Privacy Act stops protecting emails after 180 days.
3. Besides that Gmail is just as legit (if you will) as any other service.
kayvz
I'm not sure if most of you have read this article before, but i came across it yesterday and figured I'd post about it here since many people (including my self), have a gmail account, or are otherwise looking for one.
Rundown of the Article (bold), and my opinions:
1. Problem 1: Gmail is nearly immortal - Electronic Communications Privacy Act protects Emails as private property of an individual for up to 180 days, after that they are subject to retrieval the issuing of subpoena (Congress can issue subpoena's forcing people to appear in the court of law). Basically the only thing going for this claim is the fact that Gmail offers 1GB storage. Aparently hotmail doesn't share this problem (based on what he's said) because they don't allow that much hosting space, and therefore illiminate the problem of people holding their email for more than 180 days. To me, this isn't any different than using Yahoo or Hotmail or whatever. The government would be able to issue subpoena's to those tech-firms as well. Anyway, isn't the use of a subpoena a demand from Congress to compel the testimony of witnesses in a trial? Have subpoena's ever been issued to Tech-Firms with large-scale mail hosting such as Hotmail, Yahoo, etc? This specific problem also claims that Google is distrustful because even when email messages are deleted, they can still be retrieved. Well isn't this true for just about any computer? They can retrieve any fucking file they want off a drive thats even been reformatted. I can see the validity of the problem, but also it's kind of irrelavent (if im correct that is) because it's true for any other mail hosting service. I'd be interested in finding out of Hotmail or Yahoo actually delete email messages when they are marked for deletion. Anyway, the problem that stands out for me is, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act; extend it, shit it should keep emails are private content as long as they are existant. Why is it right to expire the private state of an email after a certain amount of time?
2. Problem 2: Google's policies do not apply - Claims that Googles policies are bullshit because they don't say whether they WONT use their search engine to match keyterms from your emails and use them on their Ads. Basically people don't want their names and emails going on the ads and they think google has reserved the right to do that by not including that on the privacy contract. "Ads and links to related pages only appear alongside the message that they are targeted to, and are only shown when the Gmail user, whether sender or recipient, is viewing that particular message. No email content or other personally identifiable information is ever shared with advertisers." - From privacy policy.
That pretty much sums that up. The ad service can be used to generate ads based on relavent content, but your personal information or email will never be shared with advertisers. Sounds fair enough. I do see a sense of validity in that if government agencies can trace ads generated by certain messages that seem "threatening to nation security", that they would take advantage Google's storage space and demand to see said email after 180 days (I still don't understand if that is possible, but aparently it is).
3. Problem 3: A massive potential for abuse - Claims that the google Ad program has a potential for abuse because the government could take advantage of Googles matching services to track down "copyright abusers" and potential terrorists. The reason they claim this is such a problem is again because of the amount of storage google offers. So yeah, this is pretty much the same as the above problem, and the same answer applies i think. The only valid point is the fact that people are likely not to delete mail messages (not that will matter anyway because they are still retrievable), and the expiration of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, leaving just that.
4. Problem 4: Inappropriate ad matching - Basically this one states that Google could wrongfully match terms and display them as Advertisement. The example in the article was: In article about the Brandon Mayfield arrests that discussed how the FBI made the arrest with little evidence, Google formulated two ads, one mentions sexual assault charges (sex has nothing to do with the story), and the other is about anti-terrorism. This "problem" claims that it seems Google has allready convicted Brandon Mayfield and therefore made a statement to the rest of the interweb causing everybody in the world to believe Mayfield is a terrorist (going along with example they provided). This I find slightly retarded. He can't fucking blame google for something like that. All google does is search the content of the page, and show links that are appropriate to the content (that doesn't mean google reads the article, assumes mayfield is a fucking terrorist and gives you anti-terrorist career options); it means that google reads the article, finds the keywords of "terrorist", "arrested", "brandon mayfield", "bombing", and shows a link to Anti-terrorist careers. If you think GOOGLE is suggesting brandon mayfield is a
terrorist, you're fucking nutheaded; the news article is where the content is from. It's clear that Brandon Mayfield was viewed by the government as a potential terrorist, which is why he was arrested (obviously wrongfully arrested), and this was all put into an article, that GOOGLE interpreted (correctly).
My writings have naive and ignorance written all over them, but frankly i don't give a shit because I'm not that paranoid about google's aparent desire of world domination, or the government's role in taking advantage of that. The valid point i see in that whole article is that After 180 days, Emails are no longer protected as private messages under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act; and if anything should be changed, it's that. And google should probably add some little tidbits in their privacy act to make people happy.
Anyway, what do guys think about those problems? And if anybody could explain to me the process of how the government issues subpoena's to read your email, and under what conditions they have done that, i'd be happy :].
Flame away, and even if this is OFN it doesn't pass as that because i havn't seen anybody talk about this shit so stfu
Cliff Notes:
1. Some guy writes a whole bunch of shit on how Gmail is creepy and google is off for world-domination plot and government is going to take advantage.
2. Basically only valid point is that Electronic Communications Privacy Act stops protecting emails after 180 days.
3. Besides that Gmail is just as legit (if you will) as any other service.
kayvz
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