Gmail (was: Re: June meeting)

[Robert Jewell]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 23:44:23 +0200, Patrick Blitz <blitz at post891.org> wrote:
> 
> As soon as it goes Public,
> it will be forbbiden in Europe, as far as i know...
> privacy matters.
> It's against Germna law, i think.
> 
> > On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 16:49:40 +0200, Patrick Blitz <blitz at post891.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Whats gmail?
> > > is that that google service that is forbidden over here?

To sum up the privacy concerns, in case anybody is curious:  1) gmail
scans mail and serves textads based on mail content.  2) gmail doesn't
delete mail permanently, when you delete it.

1)  Any US or European law that forbids this type of behavior is
outdated and needs to be changed.   When you are reading a mail (this
mail, for example) in gmail, gmail scans the text of the mail and,
using Adwords, displays relevant text-ads on the side of the screen.  
I will clarify..  this is a _machine_ scanning the text of the mail,
dynamically, to display ads to you, the user of gmail.  This is, by no
means, a privacy concern for anyone.  In fact, it's basically the same
thing that anti-virus softwares do.. also, spam filters..  By these
laws, Yahoo!Mail breaks these same privacy boundaries, by scanning
your mail and guessing what is spam, and placing it in a "Bulk Mail"
folder.  AOL mail does something similar, I believe.  Norton Antivirus
does the same thing, but it's done locally, and not by your mail
server.  Where is the line to be drawn?

2)  I read an interview with one of the Google technical leads.  He
stated that they take regular backups of everything, so when you
delete your mail.. it might stlil be on a backup somewhere and not get
removed for a couple weeks.  These privacy concern claims are
completely unfounded.  (unless there are additional concerns that I
haven't heard about....)


--
Robert Jewell
Who do you trust?