Google: Gmail users shouldn't expect email privacy

> Earlier on Tuesday, Google was quoted by Consumer Watchdog, RT.com (Russia Today) and Gizmodo as having argued in a legal motion that customers have “no legitimate expectation of privacy”, but the quote has been taken out of context.

I'm not sure if I should be "stunned" by the admission that users shouldn't expect this kind of privacy, since e-mail is really nothing like postal mail as the article asserts, in the sense of packages being processed, delivered as-is and left unopened in the condition they were sent.

The particular argument in this case is as old as GMail is: Google uses email content as a factor in presenting ads in the service. That's been the case since day 1. The case isn't suggesting Google gives individuals access to your email content, or publishes or shares them with other organizations. The case is directly about how GMail has always worked.

If anything that quote is about non-Gmail users and even then it’s in response to a certain aspect of the complaint.

The lawyer cited a 1979 precedent (as lawyers wont to do) to counter a specific allegation:

“a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over tothird parties.” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 743-44 (1979).

The whole case is built on trying to make physical mail (snail mail) analogies applicable to email, and Google’s lawyer is counter-arguing accordingly. They are accusing Google of "reading" emails when it's computers "parsing" text, that particular part of the motion is in response to the argument that non-Gmail users class action is valid since they didn't agree to the TOS, Google counters the mail providers’ "automated processes" are analogous to assistants that are allowed to open mail for their employers (the recipient). The "third parties" here aren't necessarily Google but the recipients of your email who happen to be using Gmail. As since you've turned over your information voluntarily to the email recipient they can apply “automatic processing” to it.

Link to relevant page: http://www.scribd.com/doc/160041493/Google-Motion-061313#pag....

The case is about Gmail "scanning" emails to target ads, Google is arguing (rightly so) that machines parsing emails is not equivalent to "reading" it, and that "automated processes" are necessary for spam filtering, full-text search, etc.

The entire motion, read it and make you own conclusions: http://www.scribd.com/doc/160041493/Google-Motion-061313

Shame on the guardian for publishing this (although it's their dubious tech section), the author evidently haven't read the motion, consulted a lawyer or bother to ask Google for comment.

I've talked to plenty of businesses that are subject to privacy rules or laws (because they handle confidential personnel or health information) that preclude them from using Google for email or data storage. I argued that this data was probably safer on a Google server than on a server in their office being taken care of by a outsourced sysadmin. They completely understood these issues before I explained them, and they were not more computer-savvy than your ordinary citizen.

There's always a tradeoff, and in case of gmail, we trade off waivering content-based automatic process with convenience. If you wouldn't like to trade anything with privacy, go find something else. There's a reason why Lavabit attracted a decent amount of users.

Having said that, the google privacy policy[1] tells of exactly what sort of information they collect, and to what ends they use. The problem I have with the whole NSA debacle concerning Google is with this exact phrase:

> We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those that are set out in this Privacy Policy.[1]

I'm fine with waivering some rights, albeit limited, for an exchange with my enormously convenient service. If you do stuff which we never agreed in the first place, and which you had told me to ask for my consent, behind my back, I'm not fine with it.

[1] http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

Now what they're really saying is "Google has no intention of helping keep your email private and confidential" which is a very different thing from insisting users have no expectations of privacy. They cannot speak for me.