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Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

This is absurd. How is Google 'intercepting' emails when Gmail is the service from which they originate? Furthermore, Google's TOS seems pretty straightforward.

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An outside party (e.g. a customer of an ISP) sending an e-mail to a company which uses Google Apps Mail or a forward to a GMail account because the ISP email interface sucks may not know at all that Google is involved.

So, the third party has no chance to be aware of Google's ToS...

Even if a third party sending an e-mail to a Gmail address is aware of Google's ToS, it's farfetched to think that they're somehow bound by Google's ToS, which they never agreed to. Yet Google claimed that these senders did, somehow consent:

Koh also rejected Google's contention that non-Gmail users gave their implied consent to scanning of their communications.

"Google has cited no case that stands for the proposition that users who send emails impliedly consent to interceptions and use of their communications by third parties other than the intended recipient of the email," Koh wrote.

The person they're sending it to could also publish it on the front page of the New York Times.

This issue is about what the receiver wants to do with the email, so by using gmail, or forwarding to gmail, the receiver is opting to have all his or her mails scanned by Google for ad placement.

It is, as a sender, my responsibility to not send information to people I can't trust. So if I think the recipient may post a picture of my wiener on the NYT front page, I should not do this.

However, if I do not know that the recipient uses Google Mail, it is not okay that Google scans and potentially indexes my wiener...

I see no fundamental difference.

recipient had forwarded email to google, by setting their MX record to google's server.

Where is it alleged that Google is doing that?

Did you find a picture of your wiener on Google Images? What search terms did you use? Or did you take a quick snap and drop it on the camera icon in the Google Image Search box?

I've not done the wiener experiment, but I do know that Google's ad placement algorithms are fairly simple-minded. For instance, our CFO sent me a request for a dump of some accounts off the accounting server. What ads did I see? Dumpster rentals and local trash haulers!

Isn't the sender then also potentially a target for ad re targeting even though they were never on gmail at all?

Assuming the sender is not also on Gmail, how does Gmail manage to show her ads?

You have the sender's email. Combine your information with information via other sources such as any other website.

http://www.adroll.com/retargeting

So that means that no third-party services should be allowed?

When I send an email to a company that uses third-party customer support software to consume, parse, and host the email; I don't agree to the TOS of the customer support vendor.

When I send an email to a company that uses third-party software to parse and archive email for legal purposes; I don't agree to the TOS of that email parsing and archiving company.

It would be ridiculous and impossible to expect that I would agree to the TOS of each and all pieces of software used in the processing of my communications with a company.

Those vendors aren't using the content of your email to further their own interests other than the expected function of delivering the mail reliably.

> Those vendors aren't using the content of your email to further their own interests other than the expected function of delivering the mail reliably.

And? The intent is irrelevant

You say this, but it's not actually true in law.

I don't see anything about intent or reason for the "intercept" making a difference in the law http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2511

> You say this, but it's not actually true in law

Can you post a link to those laws

In general, you just have to trust your email correspondents not to show your mail to parties that should not see it.

If, for you, such parties include Google's servers, then don't send mail to Gmail users. And make sure your non-Gmail correspondents do likewise.

The problem is that most correspondents don't know what their email is being reviewed by Google.

it is absurd because every mail server and email virus checker, and firewall, and depp packet inspector ever also scans those emails.

They do that only for the purpose of delivering the mail safely. Not to further their own arbitrary business interests.

what? no, almost everything I mentioned do it to further their own business interests.

Mostly by offering value to their customers in the form of added services.

Google do it to allow themselves to provide a free email service.

Without the scanning of email done by google, everyone would have to pay for their email services.

You may or may not like the trade off, but apparently MANY people would prefer to have a free email service that provides advertising over a paid for email service that does not.

If you read the article, you will learn that the issue is that users were not made aware of the tradeoff.

> Without the scanning of email done by google, everyone would have to pay for their email services.

On reflection I think that would be a good thing.

At present > 95% of Google's revenue comes from advertising. Thousands of staff are involved in designing and implementing 'improved' advertising systems. Millions of hours are consumed by this every year.

If Google was forced to transition to a subscription service for Gmail it might force a general shift in their revenue model. I contend all that brain power could be redeployed to doing amazing things, rather than refining AdWords .

maybe, but whether or not their business model is good for mankind, is really not the topic of discussion here...

This argument has already been rejected by the judge. Wiretappimg doesn't suddenly become permissible just because it permits an arbitrary business model that happens to pay for the service.

If we say analyzing your communication is ok as long as it makes money for the service provider and the service is free, we open a Pandora's box. Google (and anyone operating an SMTP server) would be able to sell HR reports to recruiters, insurability scores to insurers, predictions of criminality to police departments, infidelity scores to private detectives, etc. Advertising is not a specially protected business model.

if we say it is not ok, then it is not possible to have technology that looks at the content of email for delivery purposes. thus virus checkers, deep packet inspection and firewalls instantly become unavailable.

> They do that only for the purpose of delivering the mail safely. Not to further their own arbitrary business interests.

Intent is irrelevant, if one is wiretapping then the other is also wiretapping

Where do you get the idea that intent is irrelevant? That's certainly not a general legal principle.

Most of the messages that pass through Gmail do not originate there.

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