sábado, 7 de septiembre de 2013

Google sued for reading emails

This is interesting.  Apparently, Google is facing a class action for reading people's emails.

What I do not understand is if the legal action has legs... After all, Gmail users have been informed previously about the practice and must consent to it in order to open a Gmail account.

By the way, did you spot Mandriva in the picture? :-P

4 comentarios:

  1. There is no such thing as privacy when using a free service. No complaint here, got nothing to hide I guess...

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    1. @Fenrir88,
      Thanks for dropping by.
      I understand your point. The person who agrees to the TOS of a free service must face the consequences. However, I believe that privacy is far more complex than having something to hide. Disregarding the fact that all people have parts of their lives that they do not want to go public (what you do outside the work sphere should not be the concern of your boss, for instance), online privacy is analogous to the reason why we keep our houses locked: we want to protect that which we value from outsiders who want to take it and profit from it easily.

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    2. I see your point. Although I don't know how exactly Gmail reads the mail the article says that Google states that the reading is done by code and not by actual people.... but then the problem comes when it was leaked that Google (and Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft) shared info with the NSA, which probably includes such mails. So the real issue might lie in that the info that Gmail has access is readable and not encrypted even from themselves... albeit I don't think you can encrypt something without being able to decrypt it later yourself, which would be a must so that it can be readable on the other side?? I don't know yet!

      I think my real opinion is that today's technologies aren't ready for such privacy. Sure it's unethical, but probably all we can do about it is be careful with what we share on-line.

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    3. Your point is, of course, well-taken.
      Encryption is of little use if the party receiving the message lacks the tools or the knowledge to access the message (99% of the cases).
      We can use steganography, but email providers will suspect soon.

      In the end, as you said it, the best counteraction is not to put online what you don't want the whole world to see. The problem is when your friends put it there (as in Facebook pictures).

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