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Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

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Re: Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

#21

Post by IanCal »

bsullivan01 wrote: post #17
IanCal wrote: post #3

> Google “unlawfully opens up, reads, and acquires the content of people’s private email messages” I don't understand the concept of "opening up" an email. Comparing digital things to physical objects is always going to cause problems because they're not . > “all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing.” Of course they must, in at least some sense. They've got…

Of course they must, in at least some sense. They've got to be processed by various programs to store them in the right place. We also expect them to be scanned and filtered for spam and viruses, which require them being processed. The devil is on the details, as usual. If Google scans them with the intention of selling ads then they probably keep a dossier of your preferences or the type of emails you receive/d base…

> The devil is on the details, as usual.

It is, which is why seeing such poor analogies ruins the debate. There is an interesting discussion to be had, but we're doomed to be stuck in a mire of examples with postcards being delivered by scrooglers.

Processing emails in some fashion simply has to happen. But after that it becomes a tradeoff.

I might be fine with having targeted adverts within gmail, but not on external sites. I might be fine with it anywhere, and consider my emails to be equivalent to loyalty cards.

> On a more personal level they could know that you have AIDS, are pregnant, going through marital problems...

Of course they would, the data is all there. It has to be, it's in the data you're asking them to store on their servers! What they do with that information is the important thing.

> If it's there it's ready to be accessed, leaked, stolen or taken with an administrative subpoena.

As it is anywhere.

Re: Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

#22

Post by IanCal »

dangelov wrote: post #20
IanCal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the servers have to process the emails in some sense, they've got to read the headers for a start. They also must touch and process the body of the email. You simply cannot process emails without "opening them up", such a comparison makes absolutely no sense.

You had mentioned that you don't understand the concept of "opening up mail". I was just making a point that it is in fact quite comparable (your analog vs digital argument). In essence though, I don't disagree with you. It must be done for email to work at all. "Acquiring" though, depending on how you interpret it, doesn't, unless we want spam prevention, custom filters, search etc, which obviously people are used t…

I don't think "opening" applies at all, it suggests that they are somehow "closed" beforehand and they could be processed while keeping them closed. That's not the case.

> The bigger question is whether doing that to show ads is legal or not.

Yes, or possibly "do we want it to be legal?". We've not really been using this tech for that long, certainly not at this scale. It wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest that we need clarification on what we want the laws to allow and forbid.

Re: Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

#23

Post by bsullivan01 »

IanCal wrote: post #21
bsullivan01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they must, in at least some sense. They've got to be processed by various programs to store them in the right place. We also expect them to be scanned and filtered for spam and viruses, which require them being processed. The devil is on the details, as usual. If Google scans them with the intention of selling ads then they probably keep a dossier of your preferences or the type of emails you receive/d base…

> The devil is on the details, as usual. It is, which is why seeing such poor analogies ruins the debate. There is an interesting discussion to be had, but we're doomed to be stuck in a mire of examples with postcards being delivered by scrooglers. Processing emails in some fashion simply has to happen. But after that it becomes a tradeoff. I might be fine with having targeted adverts within gmail, but not on externa…

I am asking them to store it there but not to catalog it and make a note somewhere that this person has AIDS, is divorced, lost his house in foreclosure etc etc etc.

That's the difference. It's almost the difference between whispering something at a bar vs posting it online, where it stays for ever.

Re: Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

#26

Post by Oletros »

dangelov wrote: post #20
IanCal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the servers have to process the emails in some sense, they've got to read the headers for a start. They also must touch and process the body of the email. You simply cannot process emails without "opening them up", such a comparison makes absolutely no sense.

You had mentioned that you don't understand the concept of "opening up mail". I was just making a point that it is in fact quite comparable (your analog vs digital argument). In essence though, I don't disagree with you. It must be done for email to work at all. "Acquiring" though, depending on how you interpret it, doesn't, unless we want spam prevention, custom filters, search etc, which obviously people are used t…

> The bigger question is whether doing that to show ads is legal or not

What is the difference between "opening them" for full text search or spam filtering and "opening them" to use them for advertising?

Re: Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

#27

Post by Oletros »

bsullivan01 wrote: post #23
IanCal wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The devil is on the details, as usual. It is, which is why seeing such poor analogies ruins the debate. There is an interesting discussion to be had, but we're doomed to be stuck in a mire of examples with postcards being delivered by scrooglers. Processing emails in some fashion simply has to happen. But after that it becomes a tradeoff. I might be fine with having targeted adverts within gmail, but not on externa…

I am asking them to store it there but not to catalog it and make a note somewhere that this person has AIDS, is divorced, lost his house in foreclosure etc etc etc. That's the difference. It's almost the difference between whispering something at a bar vs posting it online, where it stays for ever.

> make a note somewhere that this person has AIDS, is divorced, lost his house in foreclosure

And how exactly can do that?

Re: Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

#28

Post by IanCal »

bsullivan01 wrote: post #23
IanCal wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The devil is on the details, as usual. It is, which is why seeing such poor analogies ruins the debate. There is an interesting discussion to be had, but we're doomed to be stuck in a mire of examples with postcards being delivered by scrooglers. Processing emails in some fashion simply has to happen. But after that it becomes a tradeoff. I might be fine with having targeted adverts within gmail, but not on externa…

I am asking them to store it there but not to catalog it and make a note somewhere that this person has AIDS, is divorced, lost his house in foreclosure etc etc etc. That's the difference. It's almost the difference between whispering something at a bar vs posting it online, where it stays for ever.

Please stop making physical analogies, those are nothing alike.

You've given them all your documents and asked them to index, filter and store them.

> not to catalog it and make a note somewhere that this person has AIDS, is divorced, lost his house in foreclosure etc etc etc.

But remember the raw data is always going to be there, so anyone with access to the raw data could draw these conclusions too.

Re: Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

#29

Post by IanCal »

mjs wrote: post #10

You need to scan to detect spam, so scanning itself can't be a legal problem. I don't see the issue here. The ads are not even slightly surreptitious, and they don't seem to be linked to your non-email ad profile. (They don't follow you across the web.) (Would it be a problem if they were? Is there a fundamental legal issue here, is it it more of a transparency/disclosure problem?)

> Would it be a problem if they were?

This is something I feel could be. I don't expect my emails to be somehow secret to google, and having targeted ads within gmail is fine by me. However I don't like the idea of them popping up on external sites when visited with my browser, or a browser I've used. There they could be revealing information about me to external parties.

Re: Google Says Scanning Text Of Your Emails To Sell Ads Is Perfectly Legal

#30

Post by dangelov »

Oletros wrote: post #26
dangelov wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had mentioned that you don't understand the concept of "opening up mail". I was just making a point that it is in fact quite comparable (your analog vs digital argument). In essence though, I don't disagree with you. It must be done for email to work at all. "Acquiring" though, depending on how you interpret it, doesn't, unless we want spam prevention, custom filters, search etc, which obviously people are used t…

> The bigger question is whether doing that to show ads is legal or not What is the difference between "opening them" for full text search or spam filtering and "opening them" to use them for advertising?

No difference in the opening. The difference is in what they do with the data, which is what I believe the lawsuit is about.
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