4 ms·

How can this be legal?

by djbebs 6y ago

randomperson321 6y ago
Why wouldn't this be legal?
londons_explore 6y ago
It's to protect the privacy of the Gmail user - it means the website doesn't get to know that you came from gmail.com. Google doesn't get any extra info, since they already had all your email contents and you already had a privacy agreement with them. One could argue that they have to do this to meet the law.
- oefrha 6y ago
  > it means the website doesn't get to know that you came from gmail.com. That's entirely solved by Referrer-Policy: no-referrer, so no. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Referrer-Policy https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re... (Unless you're talking about someone using another webmail client that doesn't set the header, which would be a stretch.)
- brirec 6y ago
  This only works for inline images because Google caches them, and then you get the images from Google’s cache. It has nothing to do with external links. If Google redirects you to a website, you’re still going to the website. Unless Google internally follows all the links in emails it won’t do anything to help spam. Not to mention all tracked links I’ve ever seen track primarily based on the URL itself. Additionally, Google adding a redirection step won’t save anything, except show via HTTP Referer that you were linked to this page by Google. If you clicked the link from a desktop IMAP client you’d have no referer, so this is a net loss for privacy, not a gain.
GuB-42 6y ago
Because you agreed to it. Somewhere in the terms of service: > This license allows Google to [...] modify your content, such as reformatting or translating it
- hnarn 6y ago
  > Because you agreed to it. Without debating the legality of this, surely you are aware that agreeing to something illegal does not make the thing legal.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > surely you are aware that agreeing to something illegal does not make the thing legal. It very often does because much illegality has absence of consent as an essential criterion.
    - hnarn 6y ago
      That is sometimes the case, but the comment that I replied to did not talk about some cases.

How can this be legal?

by djbebs 6y ago

How can this be legal?

randomperson321 6y ago

Why wouldn't this be legal?

londons_explore 6y ago

It's to protect the privacy of the Gmail user - it means the website doesn't get to know that you came from gmail.com. Google doesn't get any extra info, since they already had all your email contents and you already had a privacy agreement with them. One could argue that they have to do this to meet the law.

oefrha 6y ago
> it means the website doesn't get to know that you came from gmail.com. That's entirely solved by Referrer-Policy: no-referrer, so no. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Referrer-Policy https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Re... (Unless you're talking about someone using another webmail client that doesn't set the header, which would be a stretch.)
brirec 6y ago
This only works for inline images because Google caches them, and then you get the images from Google’s cache. It has nothing to do with external links. If Google redirects you to a website, you’re still going to the website. Unless Google internally follows all the links in emails it won’t do anything to help spam. Not to mention all tracked links I’ve ever seen track primarily based on the URL itself. Additionally, Google adding a redirection step won’t save anything, except show via HTTP Referer that you were linked to this page by Google. If you clicked the link from a desktop IMAP client you’d have no referer, so this is a net loss for privacy, not a gain.

GuB-42 6y ago

Because you agreed to it. Somewhere in the terms of service: > This license allows Google to [...] modify your content, such as reformatting or translating it

hnarn 6y ago
> Because you agreed to it. Without debating the legality of this, surely you are aware that agreeing to something illegal does not make the thing legal.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > surely you are aware that agreeing to something illegal does not make the thing legal. It very often does because much illegality has absence of consent as an essential criterion.
  - hnarn 6y ago
    That is sometimes the case, but the comment that I replied to did not talk about some cases.