[ale] What's so special about gmail invites?

[runman at speedfactory.net]

On 9/7/2004, "Jason Day" <jasonday at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 03:07:09PM +0000, runman at speedfactory.net wrote:
>[...]
>> However, when I send an
>> email to someone's gmail address - a "private" email - I shouldn't
>> have to worry about it being in the public domain
>
>Why not?  This is the point I've been trying to make since this thread
>started: email is not private or secure.  Period.

Then you need to either 1)take a law class to become more familiar with
your rights or you can just 2) notice how Google changed their policies
after a CA court came down with a ruling that yes, Virginia your email
to Santa is indeed considered private.  Private correspondence has
always been and still is private - regardless of the form it takes.
Recall how one needs a subpoena or warrant to get mail from an ISP ???? 
Wonder why messing with the USPS is a "Federal offense" and not some
local misdemeanor ??  A reasonable person (s) has a reasonable
expectation of privacy in email.   That is the standard.  Period.  There
is a considerable amount of case law about privacy and what it takes to
violate it on the part of the government and others.

Yes, I know it goes thru many servers, but so does your letter go thru
many hands.  I seriously doubt too many ISP?s want to embark on a
?dedicated and massive data mining effort? to read everyone?s email like
Google is in the process of doing with gmail.  And yes, I am well aware
that email is insecure and not as private as whispering in someone?s ear
. but that is the state of technology ? and not a deliberate act on the
part of Google.  What I am saying is if you want to give up your rights
then fine ? do so.  *But* I chose not to do so and thus Google needs to
keep their data mining mitts off of my correspondence.  I know that the
technology is insecure, but there is a difference between the reality of
the situation and a deliberate act.



  If it's a truly
>private email and you don't want anyone but the recipient looking at it,
>your only choice is to use encryption.  But even then, there's no
>guarantee.
>
>> and if I don't want
>> Google to use it, then how do I get it out of their system ???
>
>I suppose the same way you might try to get usenet posts out of their
>system.  Or emails out of the ALE archive.
>
>I can already hear the arguments: "But those are public messages, I'm
>talking about private messages".  There are no "private" email messages.
>Even if there were a strong legal precedent, the infrastructure simply
>cannot guarantee it.  There is also user error: when the reply-to
>behavior was changed for the ALE list so that replies went to the list
>by default, instead of to the recipient as it was previously, a lot of
>people sent obviously "private" messages to the list, instead of the
>sender.  Those "private" messages are still in the ALE archive, and who
>knows how many search engines/caches/etc.  There's no way to get those
>messages out of all of the systems involved.
>
>> >> I mean, corporations wouldn't do anything *illegal* now, even for
>> >> profit, would they?
>>
>> .. and what planet are you living on ??? Can I get tickets to go there
>> ???  Until the law gets rid of seeing faceless corporations as a legal
>> entity in criminal matters and starts to hold real live persons
>> accountable for their actions ...
>
>I think he was being facetious, but he raises a good point.  How do you
>know that [insert big faceless corporate ISP] doesn't scan all emails
>for keywords and build profiles?
>
>Jason
>--
>Jason Day                                       jasonday at
>http://jasonday.home.att.net                    worldnet dot att dot net
>
>"Of course I'm paranoid, everyone is trying to kill me."
>    -- Weyoun-6, Star Trek: Deep Space 9
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