Google claims Gmail users have no ‘reasonable expectation’ their emails are private

Maybe we need to re-invent language itself.

"Did you polish the copper plates?"

could mean

"How is dad doing?"

"The blue cloud is hanging over Rome"

could mean

"Hey bro how about pizza tonight?"

Just to annoy the pee out of anyone who is listening in.

reply to post by xavi1000


In a rational age that video would bring down a government. Not in the age of the herd animals.

reply to post by tothetenthpower


No source should be trusted. Just like in Snowden case. He is smart to go to a e-mail exchange service that encrypts and keeps anonymity. What he doesn't understand is that the government just threatens the company with obstructing justice. That's their wild card they like to play. If we can't control them then we just destroy them. Yes connecting to a https web browser doesn't mean your data sent is encrypted. The http ssl only protects your login session, data forms etc like at a shopping cart, or a credit card form. G-mail could encrypt mail if they offered the ability to make keys etc. but that is counter productive isn't it?? Considering Google hands out any info Big Brother wants. You can take encryption into your own hands though and use your own certificate signature or use PGP with your e-mail client.

reply to post by xavi1000


Great video and information. I implore everyone to view it, if not seen already. Also, check out pt. two when released, that am sure will show more of what this is all about.

I stopped using gmail almost a year ago. When i was getting links to products that i've mentioned in emails to my grandmother the alarm bells went of in my head, so i stopped using it.

I have my doubts about youtube as well, having suggestions thrown at you because of prior viewings may be convenient to some, but it's intrusive IMO. I trust my personal interests and hobbies to friends not machines.

I have nothing to hide from these electronic voyeurs, but the fact that my activities are being monitored unnerves me and doesn't give me confidence in the product i'm using.

What an absolute joke.

Why WOULD anyone but me be reading my emails?

If i was doing bad things, can i expect my emails to be secure and private - yes - that is a REASONABLE EXPECTATION from a cause to deviate from the standard practice of a personal account being private.

email accounts ARE NOT FACE BOOK.

As a normal guy with normal emails and normal job, i expect my emails to be private - of course i do, what possible reason could my provider or anyone else have to read through my stuff.

Am i taking part in their human behavioral studies? If i am, id like to know or be told, i have no reasonable expectation for it.

reply to post by alfa1


The case is much less clear-cut than you make it out to be, and it's definitely not insane to expect privacy when e-mails are concerned.

The definition of e-mails, as a form of private communication, is pretty clear, not a postcard. It gets complicated later down the line.

First ...

The protection of email from unauthorized access and inspection is known as electronic privacy. In countries with a constitutional guarantee of the secrecy of correspondence, email is equated with letters and thus legally protected from all forms of eavesdropping.

Email privacy

This is how the Law defines private electronic communication and the US-Government's responsibility to uphold the principle of legality.

The issue that the court dealt with in this case was the expectation of privacy that is afforded to e-mail hosted on a remote server. The court stated:

Given the fundamental similarities between email and traditional forms of communication [like postal mail and telephone calls], it would defy common sense to afford emails lesser Fourth Amendment protection.... It follows that email requires strong protection under the Fourth Amendment; otherwise the Fourth Amendment would prove an ineffective guardian of private communication, an essential purpose it has long been recognized to serve...

privacy rights

Compare this to Google's definition of how much privacy one can expect when using its email services.

"... all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing ... Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient's ECS [electronic communications service] provider in the course of delivery.

Gmail

reply to post by Thecakeisalie


Same. I noted the same thing a while ago. Although I know that it's automatic, didn't appreciate the intrusive feeling in the slightest. Youtube is going to work the same way. Google procured Youtube a while back. If you recall, they were attempting (and still attempt) to obtain users' real names and link as many accounts (including non-Google related) accounts to Youtube. Their argument for attempting to get people to use their real names on Youtube was very similar to the "if you're not doing anything wrong..." argument.

To the OP: If I send a letter via UPS, FedEx, or any other privatized service, then, although my letter will be carried and processed through all of their facilities on its travels, I'd be really ticked off if they opened and read it. The only exception I would have for such a privacy violation would be if they had probable cause (or specifically, if they thought I was sending something noxious packed in the letter). I don't see why it should be any different for email except there is very little way that any hazardous material could be sent via email..

Google abandoned their "Don't be evil" a long, long time ago. Eric Schmidt has had a long history of saying extraordinarily creepy things and his line of thinking is so consistent and pervasive within him that it borders on mental illness. But that's just my opinion. .

It seems that most of these big Internet companies are completely desensitized to issues of privacy:

Larry Ellison says NSA spying is "great" and "essential".

Originally posted by Skyfloating
It seems that most of these big Internet companies are completely desensitized to issues of privacy:

Larry Ellison says NSA spying is "great" and "essential".

Of course they are. For many of these companies, their primary product isn't what service they provide to you. It's the amount of information and access to you that is their primary product in terms of these free service providers. Whether it be for marketing automation, straight up ad revenues, or the sale of information, it's all very big bucks. In that sense, they are incredible vested in making sure that they can continue to do what they do and that would entail either being complicit with the government's interests on a voluntary basis or perhaps even the sale of all that information. The internet industry has created multiple billionaires in a very short time period. Google's revenues are around $3 billion a month. You don't bite the hand that either feeds you or makes it so that what you do remains legal.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Oracle is a government contractor. Again, you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

reply to post by tothetenthpower
I've never had any expectations of privacy in any of my personal dealings on the internet, e-mail included. We have never really had any privacy from the get go, only the illusion of such. G mail is admitting what many have known all along- that any of our mail could be monitored at any time, and I'm sure that it is the same with nearly every other mail provider. Heck, snail mail has never really been private either- it could be opened and read and resealed before it ever reached it's final destination and has been innumerable times. If one is wise he always considers who else may be reading his correspondence before ever hitting send or dropping a letter in the mailbox- not a new state of affairs, just one that is now more a matter of the general public being aware of the truth.

Go ahead look at the nudie pics see if I care.