How is it a gmail only problem? The government got a court order to force them, Google didn't hand it over willingly. It's the government who is at fault here and the shitty laws that enable it.
Right, it is a good reason for leaving all US services, just singling out gmail would be unfair. Too bad so many major ones are hosted in the US (or at least by US companies). We really need a less centralized internet... Otherwise, when the US turns into a loony military dictatorship it takes us all with it.
The article states that the government had a court order but didn't have a search warrant. It seems there is a loop in the system with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. My questions is, did Google 'have' to give over his Gmail account information? Or do they just comply to make their lives easier?
In today's society 'having to' and making your life easier is just about the same thing. Don't want to comply citizen? We do have those antitrust hearings scheduled in a few weeks, would be a shame if we found out you were running a monopoly and had to break up your company.
When US citizens are assassinated by presidential order rather than being brought to trial it's probably time to 'make your life easier' rather than wait around for the ICC.
The ISP Sonic fought against having to hand over the data and lost.
Both Sonic and Google fought over the right to inform Mr. Appelbaum of the request for his data and won (afaik).
The article says it is not known whether Google fought against having to hand over the data, like the ISP Sonic did.
Which makes me assume the writers asked Google, they didn't answer, neither did they issue a press report one way or the other. Which leads me to believe that, no, Google did not fight the actual request and unlike the small ISP Sonic did just comply in order to make their lives easier.
Of course it's just speculation but why else would we know about the other case Google did fight in this matter?
Additionally, why would Google go through that trouble, they have no interest either way, and are not in the business of protecting their users from surveillance state governments. Apparently.