“People who use Gmail and other free email systems have no reasonable expectation of privacy, according to papers filed in a U.S. district court by lawyers for Google,” Bill Chappell reports for NPR. “The filing was made in June, when Google moved to dismiss a case accusing it of breaking federal and state laws by scanning users’ emails to help target its advertising campaigns.”
Chappell reports, “In making its case, Google compared sending an email to other types of communications where privacy cannot be expected: ‘Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS provider in the course of delivery. Indeed, ‘a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.’ Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743-44 (1979).'”
“The company’s attorneys said those same expectations would also hold for any non-Gmail users who send a message to a Gmail address. And it says that anyone sending an email is essentially giving their implied consent to automatic processing,” Chappell reports. “As Eyder and Scott reported for The Two-Way last week, the U.S. government also cited the Smith case as a precedent in its pursuit of telephone metadata records… As the Techspot website notes, “The motion was uncovered less than a week after secure e-mail services Lavabit and Silent Circle closed down shop due to intense pressure from U.S. authorities. In their absence, Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom vowed to release a secure e-mail service that would run on a non-US-based network.”
Read more in the full article here.
Well, can’t really argue with that. They did name the company Google after all.
Time to ditch my Gmail account! Should have done it sooner.
I agree, but, unless you host your own email, expect the same from any other provider, and that goes for the cloud providers too.
It will be a long time before Apple starts scanning @me, @icloud emails to serve ads.
But what about .me or icloud.com? Apple “ferociously” defends our privacy, right? Or am I kidding myself, where I need to get a .com domain and run it through there. Then the only problem is I’m sending it to others who have these accounts with no expectation of privacy? What’s the answer?
Just to avoid the creepy “I know what you’re reading” ads. No thank you, Google!
Privacy? Google? Those two things don’t go together! What on earth has happened to these companies that believe they own the right to view/access information any reasonable person would consider to be private. Whether a service is free or not, users should be told in BIG BOLD LETTERS before they sign up if all communication is treated as public. Of course, instead companies like Google and Faceplant take the underhanded approach. Shame.
… no comment.
Don’t worry, this s a private site, no one will read your comments b
‘Nuff said – Distrust Google forever and stay away from anything it offers or invest in vaseline.
Exactly. This is why I won’t use Chrome. (Funny, but 3 times that mistyped to Chrime)
Chrome is now the #1 browser in most of the world. Google tracks and records everything you do.
Who are the ultimate morons buying Chromebooks?
@Reagan.com = $40
Obviously should be no expectation of privacy but their analogy is silly. A recipient’s assistant is a trusted employee. The proper analogy here is for the post office and every letter carrier along the way opening the letter and copying the contents before sending it on.
Agreed. Postcard is the proper analogy.
With Google’s attitude why even have passwords.
To ensure ads are properly targeted at you, not people pretending to be you.
No one should be surprised at this.
What a stupid lawsuit! The entire premise of Gmail, from the very beginning, is that Google would freely give you lots of space and a great interface, but you were giving them consent to scan your emails and display targeted advertising.
The problem is that only the gmail user agreed to those terms, not the people who send to gmail users.
Google should only be allowed to scan and process email from gmail users to gmail users since in that case both parties have agreed to the terms.
I agree. Makes sense
Makes sense. I retract my previous comment.
It’s rare to find someone like you that has the honesty and bravery to admit the opposite point of view
Important Warning–The evidence rules in the federal courts and most states provide that the attorney-client privilege, doctor-patient privilege, spousal-communication privilege, etc. ONLY apply to communications and conversations that the parties reasonably regard as private. So, if you consult with your lawyer, priest, or wife by Gmail, not only is the email admissible, but the recipient can be required to testify about the communication. Beware!
This has the potential to be huge. With Gmail being so ubiquitous, it is becoming increasingly difficult to kick it out of the communications loop. This especially since the common lore is that a g-mail address is to be used for professional communication.
With Google now paving the way, it won’t take long before enough legal precedents solidify the notion that G-mail communication does NOT provide reasonable expectation of privacy, therefore overriding any and all other legal protections currently available to certain groups of people (as ITxUser mentioned above).
If you really care about the true privacy of your communication, you will sanitize it all against Google.
Calm down everyone. This is only Google’s filing asserting a position favorable to Google, not any ruling by a court stating this is the law.
The Supreme Court said in a 2012 opinion that the exact decision Google is citing did not apply in today’s new technological world.
The fact is that Google acts not as your overseer (obviously not Google’s opinion of itself), but as a post office.
I think The court will reject Google’s assertion, both as being contrary to the law but also being against public policy.
Until the secret intelligence court decides otherwise…
Does anyone else get the sense that all of this great technology we enjoy is being used as a Trojan horse for corporations and governments to spy on us?
Let me know so I can invest in a tinfoil company.
Time for a Privacy Amendment to the US Constitution. It’s time to further define who we are as a people.
Well-said
This explains the penis enlargement ads that keep popping up.
Funny!
Very Funny !
Did anyone ever expect otherwise??
Google have stated a truth.
Hands up if you’ve ever read the Gmail privacy policy, hmmm?
Most people are happy using the “free” email service ignorant of what happens to their emails once they are in Google’s hands.
I’ve started wondering about AOL. I would send an email with a particular subject then suddenly I’m getting spam with the same subject. This article just confirms my suspicions! I agree with the privacy admendment but I’m afraid it would be architected by lobbyists and have no real teeth, just give the illusion of privacy.
The biggest problem here is that, from the consumer’s perspective, there is simply NO other service provider (free or paid) that offer such rich suite of online services so tightly integrated with each other as is Google. While the basics are well covered out there by many others (mail, calendar, pictures…), but with Google, there is so much more out there (sites, blogs, videos, books, docs, voice, cloudprint, groups…), and it is all integrated and personalised. As much as we all despise Google for their practices, they are simply alone at the top with respect to the breadth of services they offer. It is funny (or rather, sad) that almost nobody is asking: how are all these services paid for? This isn’t a simple mail server providing free webmail; this is a complex web of integrated services that requires serious developer support and maintenance. Yet, it is all presumably free.
In the end, we end up paying a very high price for all this free: complete loss of any privacy of our information. Sooner or later, this abstract notion will become very concrete when people’s private communication ends up putting them in legal jeopardy.
Evil.
Here is another example where the lazy populace has allowed unscrupulous companies to steal from them. There needs to be a law that denies these asshats any possibility of “implied consent” in any way. If a user does not give EXPLICIT consent with COMPLETE knowledge of ALL features and aspects of the service, then any company — Google or Apple or any other — should be held liable.
If physical stalking is so creepy, why are people today so happy to allow multinational megacorporations unfettered electronic surveillance of their every move?
Email has always been like a postcard, that’s why “Phil Zimmermann created the first version of PGP encryption in 1991,” two decades ago! The ability to read anyone’s email is neither new nor limited to the email hoster — any relay server can look at the content as a message passes through. Gmail is secure from Google (and pretty much anyone else who doesn’t have the NSA’s mainframe array) when coupled with OpenPGP. It’s myopic to think this issue has just emerged.
Wow, Google IS evil. I say the congress should allow the USPS to start operating email servers that are govern by postal law. I would pay for guaranteed private email. Make it a felony to open USPS sent email without a warrant or specific permission from the recipient. Such a pay service might even save the USPS from the collapse we have all been witnessing for the last decade.
This is madness…
Google DO NO EVIL my ass!
…Thus the revolution of encrypting EVERYTHING over the Internet. Have fun with that Google.