Comment by jsrjenkins | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsrjenkins | Hacker News Reader

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I was wondering if this would have some serious legal repercussions for Google.

In the US I believe normal mail cannot be substantially modified in transit, and that this is a Federal offense. For instance for a postal worker to open letters and insert cartoons because it was April Fool's day he would not only lose his job but also be subject to prosecution.

Certainly an email server is in some way exempt as it is possible for software to add headers to an email, but if the server modifies the message and the manner of communication substantially, there might be serious legal ramifications to this practical joke of Google. Especially since this joke impeded the response in a way similar to scratching out the return address of a postal letter.

The very fact that Google thought it worthwhile to do such a thing with personal communication absolutely boggles the mind. Any responsible organization would be insane put their email on their servers after such a stunt.

Just because it has mail in the name doesn't in anyway imply it falls under the same jurisdiction of our federal mail system.

This is more a sign of the sluggishness of the legal system to follow the reality. More people use email now than regular mail, even for official things. Most companies even accept a pdf of a signed contract as an attachment these days.

The thing is though, if email was treated in a way similar to Federal mail, the whole debate about encryption and due process could be handled by laws that already protect privacy. For some strange reason, because it uses a computer, we lose many fundmental rights that we already had with Federal mail. In a certain way email is a service so fundamental to society now, that it becomes a necessary utility - so many things can't be done without an email address today.

Yeah, it's usually called an "electronic communication" in legal stuff, and cannot be substituted for the mail. I've seen this come up in organization bylaws that say that things need to be done via postal mail, and they need to change their bylaws to allow e-mail to be used instead.

One of the dailies in the UK is reporting that some people have had job offers withdrawn and/or had to deal with other consequential issues:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/04/01/gmails-mic-...

Not a lawyer, but I wonder if Google is on very thin ice here. Federal law about snail mail may not be relevant if someone launches a substantial civil damages suit.

>The very fact that Google thought it worthwhile to do such a thing with personal communication absolutely boggles the mind.

This might have been funny on G's own internal network, kind of. But forcing it on users was astoundingly stupid and tone deaf.

Maybe next year we can have a gif of Eric Schmidt jumping over a shark on water skis.

Surely if you're using software you should be capable of operating it properly? That's probably what might getting people into trouble. If you can't figure out how to send an email properly then you're flagging up to potential employers that you're a bit of a muppet. I'd not want to compound that with a lawsuit which tells potential employers that you're also a humourless cretin.

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