What happens if I put a sealed envelope inside the schnail mail envelope? Is that opened too?
Free Schnail Mail for life
21–30 of 88 posts
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#22I didn't realize this was satire until I saw the Google logo, and I thought it was an awesome idea. "Oh, just like Gmail, but they're really open and honest about it."
I guess the reason Google and the like have to conceal their intentions is because there seem to be few people (three out of an audience in the example) who are willing to go into it knowing the terms (or admit to be willing). A lot more people are happy with signing up for the service not stopping to consider why a corporations would be so charitable, then finding out and joining the outrage bandwagon [while continuing to use the service].
This pattern seems insincere or dishonest (for the most part, always exceptions, etc), and I'm hoping it's a fad that dies out, as opposed to the value proposition getting bashed to death. Every other week there's a great tutorial on how to switch to duck duck go and roll your own everything, those are the honest sincere solutions for the truly interested.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#23Google could offer a $20/month no-ads no-tracking email service. How many privacy conscious people are willing to pay that? Its not Google deciding to do this, its just ourselves.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#24Google could offer a $20/month no-ads no-tracking email service. How many privacy conscious people are willing to pay that? Its not Google deciding to do this, its just ourselves.
Exactly zero privacy conscious people would trust Google for that service.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#25wonderful explanation
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#26wonderful explanation
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#27I don't know why this still surprises people, or why Google is being singled out here. Information is transmitted by copying. Every provider has to look at and analyze your messages if they want to do clever things to them, like let you search your archived mail server-side. Even if they don't do anything with your messages themselves, they're still compelled by the government to parse through it all. Nothing is safe…
Google is singled out due to the humans behind the corporate facade complying, no one forced them to. I would hate to reduce it to binary but things like installation of proxy hardware (Blue Coat[1]) to monitor with or court orders for conscription of local hardware are. Without people collaborating along with the US government, then people... wouldn't be collaborating. Those within the USG would be forced towards al…
you think the usg is actively pursuing these types of prosecutions?
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#28Google could offer a $20/month no-ads no-tracking email service. How many privacy conscious people are willing to pay that? Its not Google deciding to do this, its just ourselves.
I would pay for that.
Although I don't trust Google on privacy, this deal would benefit me - I get to take away the worst aspects of Gmail while keeping the better aspects.
However, I wonder if offering this service as an option would generally drive people away from free-Gmail: it would serve as an direct admission and reminder that ads and tracking are not really desirable.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#29Google could offer a $20/month no-ads no-tracking email service. How many privacy conscious people are willing to pay that? Its not Google deciding to do this, its just ourselves.
Exactly zero privacy conscious people would trust Google for that service.
Which is probably true but I can't tell if that says more about paranoia or Google.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#30Machine "reading" the email != humans reading the same thing A machine can't laugh at your embarrassing confession. Nor can a machine talk about your letter to its friends. For either of these things to happen with gmail would require serious risk and effort on part of an employee.
It doesn't matter, the information is there. He mentions building a profile. While the machines might have built it, there's nothing stopping a real person (forced or otherwise) from browsing those profiles.
"The information is there" on all e-mail providers. There is nothing (short of end-to-end encryption) stopping a real person at any e-mail provider from looking at your email.
The interesting distinction (for me, and I have been a happy GMail "customer" for close to a decade soon) isn't the profile, it's the human. I have strong faith that Google can be successful in keeping humans from reading my e-mail (or a computer-generated digest of it, which is what the profile amounts to), and so I don't worry about the existence of the profile.