[arch-general] google wave

[Loui Chang]

On Sat 31 Oct 2009 16:40 +0100, bardo wrote:
> 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.

Keeping emails away from google isn't even a half-measure towards
privacy. If you're actually concerned about people accessing your
private information, you'll encrypt all your data and transmissions.