Google: Gmail Users Have No Reason to Expect Privacy

Civilized countries generally have provisions for mail being inviolate - and for good reason. The republican and constitutionalist movements in the 19th century that sought to supplant the absolutist regimes were routinely spied on. Now we have Google arguing with a straight face that email, which has become a substitute for snail mail should be open for everyone with the proper connections. It's democracy that's at stake here, nothing less.

I am working on a solution to this very problem: http://raven.enterthemist.com

google: we are not the spies you are looking for

As I've already commented on a previous submission of the RT source, this is nonsense. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6208521

Wow, talk about taking things out of context, but I guess this is what you get from "consumer watchdog" via RT.

The "quote" in question is that of a lawyer citing a previous ruling (they do that a lot) 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, 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 that "automated processing" is part of webmail.

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

It's either the author have never seen a court briefing before or he’s just pushing an agenda.

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 responsible for spam filtering, spell checking and other features.

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

Edit: I've also found the PR from consumer watchdog, they are intentionally removing the distinction between the lawyer's words and the citation, which exposed their propaganda:

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/newsrelease/google-tells-cou...

CW:

Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient’s [email provider] in the course of delivery. Indeed, ‘a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties

Actual document:

Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’sassistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS provider in the course of delivery. Indeed,“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).

Even then it's just an out of context portion, of a bigger section of a bigger case.