5 ms·

i'm genuinely curious. how is that different from gmails privacy policy? do we know anything about googles behavior with law enforcement wrt gmail? even if gma

i'm genuinely curious. how is that different from gmails privacy policy? do we know anything about googles behavior with law enforcement wrt gmail? even if gmails eula technically allows them to "read"/index all you have in your inbox, does that really legally allow searching for a specific thing? what if there are nlp based triggers? also while the article deems this ironic: > In a move that might be deemed ironic, Microsoft will now add its own internal searches to its biannual transparency reports on government surveillance. To top of page i actually think it's a good idea. does google have anything like this? the real irony is that it reminds me of chinas quarterly human rights report on the united states. that said i use gmail in spite of hotmail. by the way, if you want a simple to setup email server, you can use atmail in a kvm. there's a whole host of free solutions, but for those who don't want to fiddle with mail configurations it's worth the 20 bucks https://atmail.com/ https://atmail.com/

Drakim 13y ago
I don't know, but Microsoft made a big deal out of saying they were better than Google with their "Scroogled" campaign.
- kevingadd 13y ago
  What Microsoft did here is different from the Google behavior they criticize in multiple ways: Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users, even in many cases people using paid Google Apps mail unless the administrator has opted out (I've encountered companies that left gmail ads enabled). This means that to a degree, the privacy and security of all your emails is compromised - though we would all hope that Google firewalls that stuff off carefully and ensures that no traces of the mails remain after they're scanned for ad keywords. To say that Microsoft accessing one account based on evidence in order to gather more evidence for a civil suit - with explicit permission granted by the user during signup - is equivalent to Google's behavior is just blatantly wrong. Both behaviors may be undesirable, but they are very, very different.
  - Drakim 13y ago
    Neither Google nor Microsoft has outright hurt me with their privacy policies in any way I can personally detect. When it comes to this discussion, for me it's a matter of principles. The principles are being equally violated here, it doesn't matter if one does it more frequently than the other.
    - JTenerife 13y ago
      So, you agree to what kevingadd wrote.
  - msabalau 13y ago
    Of course the emotional appeal that Microsoft was making was that a personified "Google" was poking through your e-mail. It seems very unlikely that they were spending money to make the banal point that the ads one sees on gmail are the result of an algorithm. In this particular case human beings at Microsoft actually did paw through this individual's e-mail, to his detriment, as was their intent. At the same time, it seems unlikely that anyone believes that Microsoft was actually advancing a principled criticism in an ad campaign as opposed to merely saying an expedient thing. I doubt that accusations of "hypocrisy" will hurt them, other than making coverage of "scroogled" in the press marginally more disdainful.
    - danieldk 13y ago
      It seems very unlikely that they were spending money to make the banal point that the ads one sees on gmail are the result of an algorithm. There is a fundamental difference. If you promise not to do content-based targeted advertising (as Microsoft claims), you have no interest to collect as much data from a user as possible. If you do content-based advertising, it's in your interest to collect data from as many sources as possible (from e-mails, to locations, to search queries) and combine them. The latter may not be acceptable to some people.
      - msabalau 13y ago
        It is clear (from reading HN) that some people exist who do not find this acceptable. At the same time, the adoption rates for, say, Facebook show that "nearly everyone" are not actually concerned about such things in practice. There are those who might argue that people should be more concerned. I believe you may find that such conversations have occurred. Regardless, it seems silly to pretend that Microsoft is making a principled claim, as opposed to mouthing what they hope are scary words. Similarly, Microsoft isn't actually worried about the plight of young women who may be under the impression that they can pawn their chromebooks to fund a trip to LA.
- mikelat 13y ago
  That's the reason anybody remotely cares about this. Given that you aren't hosting your own email servers it's a likely possibility that your privacy won't be respected, however in Microsoft's case they had an entire campaign to scare people away from Google and onto their services.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kllrnohj 13y ago
> do we know anything about googles behavior with law enforcement wrt gmail? Yes, quite a bit: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/ https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/ But the problem in this scenario is law enforcement wasn't involved. I'm unaware of any other email hosting company doing this so far. Not to say they haven't, just it hasn't surfaced.
lazylizard 13y ago
axigen has a free one for 100 users.. xeams does lack webmail but is otherwise 1 click to install.. http://www.artica.fr/ http://www.artica.fr/ i havent tried...
- lazylizard 13y ago
  or one could install virtualmin or any of the hosting control panels..like zpanel or froxlor..and use them to add mail..

Drakim 13y ago

I don't know, but Microsoft made a big deal out of saying they were better than Google with their "Scroogled" campaign.

kevingadd 13y ago
What Microsoft did here is different from the Google behavior they criticize in multiple ways: Google's ad mechanism reads all emails sent and received by all gmail users, even in many cases people using paid Google Apps mail unless the administrator has opted out (I've encountered companies that left gmail ads enabled). This means that to a degree, the privacy and security of all your emails is compromised - though we would all hope that Google firewalls that stuff off carefully and ensures that no traces of the mails remain after they're scanned for ad keywords. To say that Microsoft accessing one account based on evidence in order to gather more evidence for a civil suit - with explicit permission granted by the user during signup - is equivalent to Google's behavior is just blatantly wrong. Both behaviors may be undesirable, but they are very, very different.
- Drakim 13y ago
  Neither Google nor Microsoft has outright hurt me with their privacy policies in any way I can personally detect. When it comes to this discussion, for me it's a matter of principles. The principles are being equally violated here, it doesn't matter if one does it more frequently than the other.
  - JTenerife 13y ago
    So, you agree to what kevingadd wrote.
- msabalau 13y ago
  Of course the emotional appeal that Microsoft was making was that a personified "Google" was poking through your e-mail. It seems very unlikely that they were spending money to make the banal point that the ads one sees on gmail are the result of an algorithm. In this particular case human beings at Microsoft actually did paw through this individual's e-mail, to his detriment, as was their intent. At the same time, it seems unlikely that anyone believes that Microsoft was actually advancing a principled criticism in an ad campaign as opposed to merely saying an expedient thing. I doubt that accusations of "hypocrisy" will hurt them, other than making coverage of "scroogled" in the press marginally more disdainful.
  - danieldk 13y ago
    It seems very unlikely that they were spending money to make the banal point that the ads one sees on gmail are the result of an algorithm. There is a fundamental difference. If you promise not to do content-based targeted advertising (as Microsoft claims), you have no interest to collect as much data from a user as possible. If you do content-based advertising, it's in your interest to collect data from as many sources as possible (from e-mails, to locations, to search queries) and combine them. The latter may not be acceptable to some people.
    - msabalau 13y ago
      It is clear (from reading HN) that some people exist who do not find this acceptable. At the same time, the adoption rates for, say, Facebook show that "nearly everyone" are not actually concerned about such things in practice. There are those who might argue that people should be more concerned. I believe you may find that such conversations have occurred. Regardless, it seems silly to pretend that Microsoft is making a principled claim, as opposed to mouthing what they hope are scary words. Similarly, Microsoft isn't actually worried about the plight of young women who may be under the impression that they can pawn their chromebooks to fund a trip to LA.
mikelat 13y ago
That's the reason anybody remotely cares about this. Given that you aren't hosting your own email servers it's a likely possibility that your privacy won't be respected, however in Microsoft's case they had an entire campaign to scare people away from Google and onto their services.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kllrnohj 13y ago

> do we know anything about googles behavior with law enforcement wrt gmail? Yes, quite a bit: https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/ https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/ But the problem in this scenario is law enforcement wasn't involved. I'm unaware of any other email hosting company doing this so far. Not to say they haven't, just it hasn't surfaced.

lazylizard 13y ago

axigen has a free one for 100 users.. xeams does lack webmail but is otherwise 1 click to install.. http://www.artica.fr/ http://www.artica.fr/ i havent tried...

lazylizard 13y ago
or one could install virtualmin or any of the hosting control panels..like zpanel or froxlor..and use them to add mail..