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My apologies for changing the subject, but do you have any evidence at all that Google has ever "voluntarily hand[ed] over [anyone's] e-mails", or was that just
by jholman 13y ago
My apologies for changing the subject, but do you have any evidence at all that Google has ever "voluntarily hand[ed] over [anyone's] e-mails", or was that just a random slur?
Google's stated policy is to fight government requisition of data, but ultimately to comply with the law. That is to say, Google claims to be as anti-government-surveillance as it is possible for a corporation to be. I am aware of no evidence whatsoever that this claim is false. Admittedly, I also have no strong evidence that it's true[0].
Note that I'm not quibbling with the literal truth of your statement, since your statement deals only in hypotheticals. But it'd be pretty crass of me to say something like "I've never seen <insert name here> rape a child without offering the kid some heroin to ease the pain", even though it's technically true for every name including yours.
Also note that I'm not entirely sunshine-and-roses positive about Google's record on privacy. I think it's not as bad as the fear-mongers state, but not without any concerns whatsoever. Google management, it seems to me, pretends to believe that when users say "we want privacy" they always-and-only mean "we want privacy from the government and criminals". Which is... disingenuous. But I think that Google appears to be a relatively pro-privacy [1] organization, especially with regard to the particular slur you raised, and I've never seen a credible argument that this appearance is false.
[0] I do see some evidence that Google is truly anti-surveillance. However, all the evidence I have is also consistent with the theory that Google is willing to spend a lot of money to convince its employees that it's anti-surveillance... if Google were an NSA shell corp, maybe this is how it would behave.
[1] By "relatively pro-privacy", I mean I have to think pretty hard to think of organizations MORE pro-privacy, although eventually I remembered that mozilla exists.
- declan 13y agoRandom slur. Google fought a DOJ subpoena for search terms in court (while Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft did not), which I wrote about here: http://news.cnet.com/FAQ-What-does-the-Google-subpoena-mean/2100-1029_3-6029042.html http://news.cnet.com/FAQ-What-does-the-Google-subpoena-mean/... It also nationalized Warshak by requiring a search warrant for the contents of archived email (anyone think Verizon/AT&T/etc. have been doing that?). More importantly, Google is currently challenging a secret NSL it received from the FBI in federal court in San Francisco, making it the first large Internet company to do so. It also became the first large Internet company to divulge summary statistics about receiving NSLs. Twitter and Amazon.com have similarly good records. And Facebook fought a subpoena from the state of Virginia.
- rayiner 13y ago> My apologies for changing the subject, but do you have any evidence at all that Google has ever "voluntarily hand[ed] over [anyone's] e-mails", or was that just a random slur? I didn't say they did. I said: "the federal government [has asked] Google to voluntarily hand over your e-mails." I referenced Google because of: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/13753-gov-t-requests-google-e-mail-data-2012-most-without-warrant http://cnsnews.com/news/article/13753-gov-t-requests-google-....
- declan 13y agoYou misinterpreted the CNSNews.com article. You used the term voluntary but the incidents referred to in it are involuntary demands. That is, they represent legal process, such as a search warrant, a (d) order or grand jury subpoena for non-content logs, etc. If Google gets a valid court order, it is required by law to involuntarily comply. Similarly, if the cops show up at 6am at your home with a valid search warrant, you're required to involuntarily let them in and conduct their search. Also the good folks at CNSNews.com (published by the conservative advocacy group Media Research Center) would probably not be my first choice for a survey of surveillance and electronic privacy law. For instance the article fails to mention that, at the time it was published, Google required search warrants for all e-mail -- an important detail.