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No it doesn't. Free email existed long before Google started reading people's email. The email scanning just makes extra profits for google and their advertis

by gibwell 13y ago

No it doesn't. Free email existed long before Google started reading people's email. The email scanning just makes extra profits for google and their advertisers at the expense of people's privacy.

res0nat0r 13y ago
15GB of free email service to 400+ million people costs a little bit of money to keep running. I'm going to go with the premise that advertising helps fund the cost of keeping this service up and running.
- gibwell 13y ago
  That isn't in dispute. The problem isn't advertising. It is reading people's email.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    Honestly I don't see much merit in this suit and suspect nothing will come of it. No human is "reading" your email in so much as an SMTP server "reads" it to know where to route your email next. Automated scanning is inherent in allowing gmail to be free. You submit to this when singing up for the service. 3rd party users emailing a plaintext email across the internet also have no expectation of privacy, just like mailing a postcard to someone across the world.
    - gibwell 13y ago
      Automated scanning is in no way inherent in allowing gmail to be free. Repeating this won't make it true. Advertising is what supports Gmail. Advertising does not require automated scanning of email, as is clearly demonstrated by the existence of free advertising supported email providers who do not scan email. The judge has already stated that users signing up for email do not understand that their email will be scanned, so no, you don't submit to it when signing up. The reason for the email scanning is to make extra profit for Google, and to increase the detail of their user profiles - which are also used when targeting ads outside of gmail. It is certainly false that users sending plaintext email have no expectation of privacy, both in law and in fact. The consequences if this were true would be profoundly destructive, because it would permit network operators to set up transparent proxies and sell access to email for any purpose. There are wiretapping laws for a reason. You can't just ignore this because you like Google. There is a reason why Google were the first to start scanning people email for advertising - because everyone else thought it was wrong. It turns out that the law might well agree.

by gibwell 13y ago

No it doesn't. Free email existed long before Google started reading people's email. The email scanning just makes extra profits for google and their advertisers at the expense of people's privacy.

res0nat0r 13y ago

15GB of free email service to 400+ million people costs a little bit of money to keep running. I'm going to go with the premise that advertising helps fund the cost of keeping this service up and running.

gibwell 13y ago
That isn't in dispute. The problem isn't advertising. It is reading people's email.
- res0nat0r 13y ago
  Honestly I don't see much merit in this suit and suspect nothing will come of it. No human is "reading" your email in so much as an SMTP server "reads" it to know where to route your email next. Automated scanning is inherent in allowing gmail to be free. You submit to this when singing up for the service. 3rd party users emailing a plaintext email across the internet also have no expectation of privacy, just like mailing a postcard to someone across the world.
  - gibwell 13y ago
    Automated scanning is in no way inherent in allowing gmail to be free. Repeating this won't make it true. Advertising is what supports Gmail. Advertising does not require automated scanning of email, as is clearly demonstrated by the existence of free advertising supported email providers who do not scan email. The judge has already stated that users signing up for email do not understand that their email will be scanned, so no, you don't submit to it when signing up. The reason for the email scanning is to make extra profit for Google, and to increase the detail of their user profiles - which are also used when targeting ads outside of gmail. It is certainly false that users sending plaintext email have no expectation of privacy, both in law and in fact. The consequences if this were true would be profoundly destructive, because it would permit network operators to set up transparent proxies and sell access to email for any purpose. There are wiretapping laws for a reason. You can't just ignore this because you like Google. There is a reason why Google were the first to start scanning people email for advertising - because everyone else thought it was wrong. It turns out that the law might well agree.