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Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

blogs.law.harvard.edu

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Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#61

Post by X-Istence »

rjd wrote: post #37
kenjackson wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an IT department the expectation is that people will read your email. I honestly don't think what you describe is rare at all, based on stories I've heard. And if you work for the gov't your email can often be requested by citizens via FOIA.

I was working for a government agency in New Zealand when they introduced a law that meant every email became a government communication and you couldn't delete anything. I usually operate on an empty inbox principal, it was a total nightmare for me. I folded that contract as soon as my term was up.

Moving it to another folder wouldn't have sufficed?

Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#63

Post by AgentConundrum »

X-Istence wrote: post #59
AgentConundrum wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does read your email for ads, and that fact is spelled out in their answer quoted above. AdWords/AdSense doesn't only apply to the content of the site you happen to be on, but is an aggregate of all they've learned about you over time. This means that data they collect from relevant keywords in an email is used to show relevant ads to you on a separate website. I've never used AdSense so I don't know how it wo…

Google's Ads are served in an iframe.

I suspected as much, but as I've never used them I wasn't sure. Thanks for clarifying.

Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#64

Post by sixtofour »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #39
sixtofour wrote: post #31

From the comments: > here’s a strange little story that happened to me a while ago – I set up a gmail account to deal with nigerian letters and such (I wanted to collect some data to report the spammers/thieves, without compromising my actual e-mail address in the process). I set this up with a fake username (something like george.thompson or so) and a password which included the word “nigeria” in it. Lo and behold,…

Don't be too quick to judge - maybe he had been searching for Nigerian related things before creating the account.

You, and the other respondents, are probably right. Sometimes I'm too quick on the draw.

Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#65

Post by nobody31 »

Where does it say on harvard.edu that they wont kill students and harvest their organs?

Edit: Oh sorry forgot that people in the land of the free don't have a human rights act preventing Google reading their email (not sure about harvesting organs)

Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#66

Post by patrickaljord »

dotBen wrote: post #51

the tl:dr of this comment thread is that most HN'ers have sadly taken the question too literally and are commenting on the fact Google reads emails with a definition of "read" being that of "parse" (ie computationally). I think most people know and expect they obviously do that, for advertising targeting etc. I can't believe people are shocked or surprised at that. Which is a shame because I think it's pretty clear t…

> Which is a shame because I think it's pretty clear the OP is actually asking about Google employees reading your email

Unless you run your own smtp and pop/imap mail servers, there is no way to be sure no one will read your emails. Even then, your servers could get hacked or maybe your contacts use a hosted solution (and most people do) that could get hacked, there is again no guaranty. The only work around is to fully encrypt your emails, even then someone could steal your private keys, or you could be using an unpatched encryption software etc.

It's a matter of trust and time saving. Do you trust google, yahoo employees etc to not spy on you more than you trust your ability and your contacts ability not to get your mail servers hacked? How much of your time and money are you ready to waste maintaining such a server?

Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#67

Post by [deleted] »

dotBen wrote: post #51

the tl:dr of this comment thread is that most HN'ers have sadly taken the question too literally and are commenting on the fact Google reads emails with a definition of "read" being that of "parse" (ie computationally). I think most people know and expect they obviously do that, for advertising targeting etc. I can't believe people are shocked or surprised at that. Which is a shame because I think it's pretty clear t…

[deleted]

Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#68

Post by rjd »

X-Istence wrote: post #61
rjd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was working for a government agency in New Zealand when they introduced a law that meant every email became a government communication and you couldn't delete anything. I usually operate on an empty inbox principal, it was a total nightmare for me. I folded that contract as soon as my term was up.

Moving it to another folder wouldn't have sufficed?

Yep, but when you get hundreds of emails a day, you end up folders inside folders. Not being able to trim excess is a total pain. Not to mention the pain of having limited mailbox sizes, so you have to ring the infrastructure vendor to archive your mail. And then put in requests to get older archives so you can search for stuff.

Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#69

Post by sherwin »

sixtofour wrote: post #64
wahnfrieden wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be too quick to judge - maybe he had been searching for Nigerian related things before creating the account.

You, and the other respondents, are probably right. Sometimes I'm too quick on the draw.

I seriously doubt google would persist any parts of passwords in plain text.

Re: Where does Google actually say that they won’t read Gmail or Google Docs?

#70

Post by abraham »

Google made a related statement last year when they fired an employee for unauthorized access to private data including emails.

"We carefully control the number of employees who have access to our systems, and we regularly upgrade our security controls–for example, we are significantly increasing the amount of time we spend auditing our logs to ensure those controls are effective. That said, a limited number of people will always need to access these systems if we are to operate them properly ..."

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/google-engineer-spying-fire...

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