Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by microtonal 4490 days ago
Well, except that many users want full indexing of e-mails, including attachments, such that they can use an AJAX web interface to quickly search them.

So, storing all e-mails encrypted is not really feasible if you want to have such features as well [1]. It's a trade-off - convenience or security (I am sure someone will site Benjamin Franklin now ;)).

[1] Yes, I know that there is work on indexing encrypted data.
1 comments
PavlovsCat 4489 days ago
There is still a difference between storing the emails unencrypted and using them to profile users for ad targeting.

But anyway, what you are talking about could still be optional: if you wanted to search and be somewhat private you'd have to download the emails with a local client via IMAP - and if you really need search via web interface, you would toggle the option to store the emails unencrypted for that purpose.

link
microtonal 4489 days ago
There is still a difference between storing the emails unencrypted and using them to profile users for ad targeting.

You can disable interest-based ads:

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads

Also, if you have a paid Google Apps account, you can disable ads in Google apps.

Personally, I'd like to see targeted ads more than 'random' ads. Of course, I don't like to be profiled. So, I use Ghostery, an ad blocker, and paid e-mail.

link