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The email system was and continues to be criticized since it uses Google’s AdSense to include contextual advertisement together with email messages, which means that it’s a ‘bot’, a type of software, which ‘reads’ email contents, violating user privacy.
Despite the fact that Google’s representatives indicate that no human has access to such communications, ‘Consumers in Action’ has won the first battle against Google for email privacy invasion. After their complain before the Spanish Agency of Data Protection, this entity has declared illegal the business model used for this email service.
It would be funny and counter-productive if Gmail was somehow shutdown in Europe. Frankly, I don’t see it happening. However, if it were to happen, I would be forced to transfer thousands of emails off from my Gmail account; with Gmail’s large storage capacity, I almost never delete an email.
I hope these guys don’t catch on that mail transfer agents all read the messages for their headers. Some even do sender verification and the like.
Nice. Stick it to Google. I hate those bottom line ads. And it isn’t like anyone can’t get a free e-mail address at another site.
I find it surprising that in this day and age people still think their email is private.
#3
you would make a great GW replacement…
GW has nothing to do with it. Email has never been private. It’s just digital floss traveling the interwebitubes. It’s not encrypted or protected in any way, unless you take extra measures. Anyone with half a lick of sense can grab what you sent and read it. That’s like having an expectation of privacy for something written in the local paper, or shouted from the rooftops.
If you expect your email to be private, you better use your own encryption products…because just hitting send doesn’t cut it.
#6 That’s like having an expectation of privacy for something written in the local paper, or shouted from the rooftops.
No it’s not.
I’m going to make probably a conservative guesstimate here that more than 90% of people in this country can’t read your e-mails (they don’t know how), yet the same 90% can walk by your mailbox, open your letter and read it.
Do you have privacy expectation for your mail?
Yes, because it is a specified federal crime to open that letter.
Maybe that’s why Gmail is still marked as Beta. It allows Google to sidestep some issues?
I guess I’m just griping that after a couple years, it’s still beta.
Maybe they should promote it as an advertising contextualiser
#8
I don’t think our government inability to keep up with technology should be an excuse here, after all Ted Stevens is probably a prime example of the 90% I mentioned in #7
Fair enough. However, if you use GMail, your email (data) resides on their servers. How can you expect it to be private from the owners of the storage facility? If you were paying rent, I could see it….but on a free service? If I sleep at the homeless shelter, do I have an expectation of privacy? I know I do if I pay rent…but what if I don’t?
Remember, we’re not talking about the government having access…that should be up to the owner of the data. We’re talking about the owners of the servers having machines take your emails, datamine them for patterns…in order to make money trying to sell you something.
#12 the owner of the data.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Just because Google provides this service for “free”, which is debatable, since the number of visitors actually drives their business, meaning brings them profit (I know it’s a very wide generalization), doesn’t mean that they are the owner of the data that goes through their servers (in my opinion anyway).
The delivery method is different, but how would you feel about USPS scanning your letter, running through some bot (providing it would be done without human involvement) and delivering it along with some advertisement? They do deliver junk mail, but without reading your letters, just like Yahoo does in their e-mail service (hopefully). And yes, USPS charges a small fee, but that’s just a different business model (number of users doesn’t really matter here).
Small technicality, like delivery method or fee based delivery, do not change the fact that regular mail and e-“mail” are one and the same if it comes to the information they contain and they both deserve the same protection.
The small technicality is the detail that matters. Also, in the eyes of the law, perception is reality. I have a reasonable expectation of privacy in written snail mail letters because they law says they are inviolate.
Beyond that, I pay money from my pocket to the USPS, and I would be upset at them scanning my letter for several reasons. Number one, I don’t know how they plan on securing my data..and I expect it to be secure. Number two, I paid for their service out of my pocket. Therefore why should I be OK with them padding the bottom line by giving me advertisements without my foreknowledge? In the case of GMail, I know the advertisements are how they make money, in order for the service to be free (to me)…therefore I expect them. You get what you pay for. Since I pay nothing for GMail, I expect they get their money elsewhere. I pay for the USPS out of pocket, so I don’t.
If Google was selling me the service (out of my money, not advertisers), and gave me assurances to it’s security I would probably agree with you. However, neither is the case.
I don’t believe I have a reasonable expectation of privacy because I know how easy it is for someone to read my email. Just because the majority of the population is unaware of this fact doesn’t make it any less so.
“…which means that it’s a ‘bot’, a type of software, which ‘reads’ email contents, violating user privacy…”
so I guess all google ads on websites are illegal too since they “read” the content of the site to display targeted ads? I’ve used gmail since it came out, I could care less if they send me targeted ads, I just never click on them. Feel sorry for those in Europe who like gmail
Whoa, Chill everybody this BS is goin’ nowhere. I’m a US citizen resident in Bilbao Spain the last 23 of my 46 years. The agency in question is a typical european bureauratical tax sponge. Born out of a need to protect data privacy issues, it needs to stay active to protect it’s funding. But politics here is just like everywhere else, lot’s of grandstanding but nothing gets done.
As far as adsense is concerned anybody stupid enough to think a free public mail service is safe, secure, and private needs to ADD sense, get it?
😉
#6, 8, 12, & 14 Calin,
Telephone conversations are just electrons flowing over some piece of wire. Why should they be special while email isn’t? BTW, it is easier to tap a telephone line than a computer link.
#2 – I call HillaryShit. You don’t like the ads, use a different free email service. That’s a choice you get to make. Others like Gmail and don’t need to have it stuck to them.
Two Points:
(1) Wouldn’t a spam filter also be illegal based on that definition of law?
(2) Get real! Gmail is free.
I disagree that it is ‘easier’ to tap telephones, but that is really a non-issue. On your telephone, the phone doen’t need to be tapped for normal operation.
Google must look at the message to implement there spam/antivirus filters, to parse out the message headers from the message and so on.
Or, is the EU going to rule that spam filters are illegal next?
# 17 Mister Catshit alleged, when some clock read January 25th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Telephone conversations are just electrons flowing over some piece of wire. Why should they be special while email isn’t? BTW, it is easier to tap a telephone line than a computer link.
Now personally, I use GMail, and I like it. I like how it’s integrated into Google, my favorite search engine. I like how it gives me loads of storage space (it’s still growing), and I like how I can block the advertisingusing a sweet combination of NoScript and CustomizeGoogle.
I am a PRIME example of what can be done with Firefox. When I see a website like this encourage you to get it, I immediately put it on my favorites list.
The only thing I use that might kill my privacy is a social browsing extension called me.dium. AND EVEN STILL the head of me.dium is a privacy and security expert himself.
In short, I have nothing to fear. And any European using Firefox with NoScript, Adblock Plus and CustomizeGoogle as an extra measure to block ads should have nothing to fear using GMail either.
#19 <- First of all, theoretically, there is no guarantee of privacy when you have your email stored in the cloud.
Spam filter is not the same with Google Ads in Gmail. It is just a filter that scans(using regex, matching the sender to a database of crooks e.t.c.) for characteristics common to spam and computer viruses.
Gmail Ads is different. To see it clearly think how Google serves the advertiser. They have to show him, when and where his ads appeared. How many keywords matched his criteria and many more statistics that are “private”.
God, this is so stupid. It’s not spyware. It’s not the NSA. It’s just code. It doesn’t keep track of any personal info, doesn’t associate your username with keywords, just anonymous statistics. The e-mail is appearing in the code of the web-page, so it’s just like AdSense for websites. It could be exactly the same software for all we know.
On the other hand, if they start selling non-anonymous stats, like that tcmoore4 received an e-mail about the size of his or her penis, then I’ll really get angry!
Gmail is the least cluttered and intrusive e-mail interface out there. The text adds on the right are hardly noticeable, and easily ignored.
You privacy freaks are shooting yourselves in the foot.
P.S. #2, it’s Yahoo and the other guys that put adds on the bottom of your e-mails. Gmail doesn’t do that. I just tested it out with my Yahoo account. (The Yahoo beta ain’t bad either, but it’s horribly cluttered and overly engineered, IMHO. Still with the dumb banner, or worse Flash, ads.)
a nothing story like has a simple conclusion. google does not mislead anyone as to how their email system works – like most things that people kick off about – if you dont like it, dont use it.
this may be quite novel for some people but i think if people rolled this sentiment out to other issues we can all concentrate on what’s important.
please help me how to put adsense ads between posts
http://famoussites.blogspot.com