[arch-general] google wave

[bardo]

2009/10/31 Heiko Baums <lists at baums-on-web.de>:
> And with Google!? I don't understand how one can be interested in
> letting Google read and use his/her personal e-mails, documents etc.

I'm very careful about my privacy. My google account doesn't usually
host private/work e-mails, for those ones I have an account with
someone who cares about my privacy (an Italian project,
autistici.org). Mails I'm sending from this address are going to
become public anyway, so I care more about other features.

> Have you read their terms of use? And do you know what Google does with
> your e-mails, documents and other data? Google reads, scans and
> evaluates e.g. every e-mail which is sent to or from a Gmail account
> and every document which is edited by Google Docs.

I read their terms of use. I'm more aware of the problem than you
think, and in fact I'm active in a privacy-related project. And if I
*really* need to use gmail for a private message, I encrypt it with
GPG.
Also, I don't use google docs or similar apps.

> The only thing from Google I'm using is their search engine and this
> only without cookies. I won't give Google my personal communication or
> documents. And I'm thinking about not sending e-mails to Gmail
> addresses anymore.

It should also be noted that, if someone writes you from a gmail
address, their communication to you gets logged. This means that
there's no way to keep google (or $otherprovider) out of your
business. Also, people don't care, because it is in *their* freedom to
choose whatever service they prefer. And this is a good thing, even
though their choice involves *your* privacy. I suppose that, with a
real lot of time, money and good lawyers, you could force google to
not "read" e-mails because their customers agreed to their ToS, but
not the people they communicate to.

In conclusion, even though I sympathize with your views, I think your
battle is lost because it's flawed in its basis. If you don't like how
e-mail works, well, there are internationally recognized standards for
it, nothing you can do about it. Just change for a different service
which is based on technology that doesn't allow the provider to read
user's data. After all, there are technologies that allow us to log
into services without them or anybody knowing our passwords, why not
making it mandatory for contents? We just need a new protocol. And a
good reason for users to make the switch, since as we know people are
lazy.

Corrado