[001sky]

Meanwhile, Google Argues for Right to Continue Scanning Gmail

"This company reads, on a daily basis, every email that's submitted, and when I say read, I mean looking at every word to determine meaning," said Texas attorney Sean Rommel, who is co-counsel suing Google.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/google-argues-con...

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24021944/google-argue...

[magicalist]

Why are you posting this shit on HN? Everyone here knows how contextual advertising in gmail works, and excepting those too young to have been aware back then, have known about it since 2004. If you have a point, make it, but scare quotes specifically made to induce an emotional reaction from those without technical knowledge really have no place here.

[001sky]

Here's your footnote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_of_privacy

[magicalist]

I'm not sure what your point is. If you don't want your email accessed, don't send it unencrypted from your client, and definitely don't send it via a service that has features (search, spam, google now, etc) and is payed for by a system (contextual advertising) that explicitly accesses the contents of your email.

Download Thunderbird and a PGP client[1]. Boom, done.

Use another email service. Boom, done.

I'm not objecting to the idea that you'd find it objectionable to have your email contents used for advertising. I'm objecting to a useless quote that tries to turn this into a soundbite-off instead of an actual discussion (little hope as this thread has).

[1] https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/digitally-sign...

[001sky]

Diluting the expectation of privacy about e-mail in general has implications under constitutional law. The 4th amendment only protects against unreasonable searches by the governmnet. The use of mail connotes private communication. As in contrast to post (which is presumed public). Implied consent to forfeighting the right to stop 3rd parties reading your e-mail is not something the public has an interest in establishing. Regardless of the purpose of such 3 party incursion. I don't want to get into a side-bar explanation or legal debate TBH, but its not mindless fear mongering.[1]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/07/us/politics/legislation-se...

“This has been the stuff of wild-eyed accusations for years. A lot of people are heartbroken to find out it’s not just wild-eyed accusations.”

[magicalist]

No, this is not correct. The particulars of your agreement with a third-party for storage of your email does not extend government rights to examine that data (the ads in your inbox are as non-public as the email in there too). Even the horribly flawed ECPA recognizes that (it buttresses it, in fact). Moreover, Google[1] is currently standing behind the US v Warshak shield and requiring warrants for email contents.

The problems with the third-party doctrine are much more fundamental than the ways in which that third-party is storing and displaying your data, activities that continue for any webmail client even in the absence of ads when doing spam filtering, searching, etc. Merely the fact that a third-party is involved at all is enough for the outdated sections of the ECPA to rear their ugly heads. Here's hoping the Supreme Court takes up a case like US v Warshak soon.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/01/google-stands-up-...

[001sky]

No, this is not correct.

Your talking statutes, not the constitution. Obviously the constitution trumps both statute and executive readings. Reasonable is per the constitution, an it is plastic in case law. That's why the questions are important, fundamentally. In any event, its worth keeping in mind the right level of abstraction.

[SilliMon]

Ditto for Google Drive, encrypt it with something like Syncdocs[1] to keep files private.

Encryption keys are like car keys - you need to own them, not Google.

[1] http://syncdocs.com

[obituary_latte]

If nothing else, it reminds people that it's going on. Which is a good thing. Myself, with adblockXYZ installed, often forget or don't notice. And when these do come up, I'm grateful because it reminds me to stop being a lazy bastard and set up an email server (as I've done many times for others) for myself. I appreciate that.

[magicalist]

I guess. There are plenty of other people in this thread who have brought up the fact that if your email service can read your email you are inherently vulnerable without quoting the plaintiff's attorney in a suit about the practice talking to ABC news. Talk about your lowest common denominator.

I didn't come here to be propogandized at, so, yes, I will object to the dumbing down of debate to appeals to emotion (especially on a subject that's obviously already so emotionally charged).

[001sky]

magicalist: It was a widely reported national headline because it came from AP. It was not a story by some perma-tanned fake news-anchor. Alternative sources, same headline. This is also very much a PR war, on both side (google, NSA, etc). In case you haven't also icked that up. Everyone is in the business of manufacturing headlines.

http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2013/09/google_argues...

http://news.yahoo.com/google-argues-continue-scanning-gmail-...

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/google-argues-right-continue...

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24021944/google-argue...

[obituary_latte]

Ok. Maybe you came to the wrong place then. Or maybe your perspective is off... Who could know such things?

[tytso]

Um, you do realize that pretty much every single mail service provider is "scanning" their customer's email to screen out spam, right? That's also an algorithmic analysis of the body of the e-mail, and it's providing a service that most customers appreciate (since the generally don't want to swamped by hundreds of Viagra and "make money fast" emails every day)

[newman314]

Spam scanning can be thought of a continuous stream without a given email assigned to a user whereas contextual scanning for the purpose of advertisement necessarily ties emails to you.

Maybe it's just a semantic difference but I would argue that that is a sufficiently big differentiator.

[RobAtticus]

This quote makes it sound like Google employees (i.e., humans) are reading your email. It's an algorithm that is processing your email, as most (all?) of us are aware. It's not like there's some employee sitting there reading your stuff and then determining you're in the market for a new camera.

[valas]

By your definition of 'reading', our providers router is reading your email as well. Why don't you sue it?

[cromwellian]

"Determine meaning?" I'm pretty sure there's no computer software in existence at this point that can read human text and "determine meaning"

[mahyarm]

They have the infrastructure for a fully paid version set up now with being able to buy more space for your google account. Maybe add a client-side encryption option along with no ads. It will make things like server-side search incredibly more difficult although.