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Google Email Spying Ruled Unlawful

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Re: Google Email Spying Ruled Unlawful

#11

Post by cromwellian »

Taken to an extreme, this idea of applying wiretapping law to federated services seems to be a danger to open systems. A closed messaging system can get all users, both senders and recipients, to agree to whatever is needed to make the system work (e.g. if they need to examine the content and not just the envelope)

However, when you have federation, two different sets of users on two different services may have agreed to differing terms. Applying terms like "interception" in these cases also seems strange.

It's bad enough that silos and vertical integration seem to be winning over the internet of old, but to have the legal system create a situation in which the open systems are much more risky to run seems to be a bad precedent.

(I also have to wonder who is really behind these cases. It's not very plausible that any of the plantiffs are really being harmed by automated ad serving, and then there's the whole Scroogled campaign...as Arsenio Hall used to say...things that make you go hmmmmm.)

Re: Google Email Spying Ruled Unlawful

#14

Post by dragonwriter »

dingaling wrote: post #10
r0h1n wrote: post #5

IANAL but the Court seems to have granted Google's motion to dismiss only for claims under CIPA Section 632 while denying it for all the other sections. > the Court hereby GRANTS Google’s Motion to Dismiss with leave to amend with respect to Plaintiffs’ CIPA section 632 claims This is Section 632: > Section 632 prohibits unauthorized electronic eavesdropping on confidential conversations. To state a claim under secti…

Interesting, re: Section 632 > and that not all parties consented to the eavesdropping. Are they indicating that when someone sends an e-mail to a Gmail account that they are implicitly consenting to the 'eavesdropping'? As another poster pointed-out on HN a few weeks ago, sometimes it's not even clear if a domain is using Gmail. One would have to check the MX RRs first, before making a decision on sending. Sounds li…

> Are they indicating that when someone sends an e-mail to a Gmail account that they are implicitly consenting to the 'eavesdropping'?

No, not at all.

There are, per the order, three requirements identified for a 632 violation: "(1) an electronic recording of or eavesdropping on (2) a 'confidential communication' (3) to which all parties did not consent."

The order finds the plaintiffs' case deficient on this point because: "Plaintiffs have not established that the communications at issue are confidential pursuant to section 632."

Re: Google Email Spying Ruled Unlawful

#15

Post by dragonwriter »

The headline is a lie, nothing Google has been found to have done has been ruled unlawful. The order here simply allows the case against Google to proceed in part (while throwing out part of it in its current form). This is a very early ruling in the case, before any evidence has been presented, and is purely a ruling as a matter of law about the standing of the parties to bring the case, and whether the claims made are even valid legal charges.

Re: Google Email Spying Ruled Unlawful

#16

Post by AjithAntony »

Oletros wrote: post #13
ciucanu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong as not ethic or wrong like false?

Wrong like false, you are not the product, the product is ad space

I feel like you have something more you want to say that makes you point more clear. I think this audience would say ad space is not far removed from the eyeballs that make the ad space valuable.
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