> 1. Machines scanning your email doesn't violate privacy Depends what the machine or the operator is doing with the result of that scan. > 2. Even if it did,

> 1. Machines scanning your email doesn't violate privacy Depends what the machine or the operator is doing with the result of that scan. > 2. Even if it did, you consent to it when you sign up for a Gmail account Gmail users consent to scan from Gmail but if google holds in court that consent is implied to the automated processing of emails then someone might think this content extends to any machine touching the mail on its trip to the recipient. Which is not the same as "scanning mail content to get useful keywords for better ads". I wonder if google is allowed to scan mails it has received but the user hasn't yet opened. It means google has access to the user's pen buddy mail without that pen buddy's consent. I agree consent from the user is given when he reads any mail that include or not his correspondent text But that correspondent might be using another mail provider and my point is that he hasn't given explicit consent to google to scan its mail... the one allowing that is the gmail user. What happens if I say to my correspondent "don't share this" and he opens the mail. Has he betrayed me by sharing that mail with google ? If google has indexed that mail content before I (the gmail user) had a chance to read it... did google violate my correspondent's privacy ? Is sending an email to a gmail address an implied consent to have mail read and indexed for ad targeting ? Excluding necessary and really automated non-profit machine analysis such as white listing, anti-spam, virus, domain verification, stp check, etc. Automated processing (for making sure it's delivered) of emails certainly doesn't imply scanning content to build a social graph and an ad profile.