gibwell

Perhaps the analyst's report is inaccurate.

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

I'm not a gmail user, so no, I didn't agree to their TOS, and I don't know which of my emails are intercepted by google because I don't know who redirects their email there.

Also, the judge has already decided that even Gmail users are generally unlikely to understand that their emails are being intercepted for Google's business purposes.

Part of the argument is that the assistant doesn't actually have the consent to use the contents of the email to show the recipient ads.

We're comparing actual scenarios that are happening today. You seem to be arguing that it's ok for Google wiretap people, but not ok for the government to do so, because the government has killed people whereas Google has not.

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

The decisions are based on the purpose for which the interception was done.

Using the contents of people's email to support an arbitrary business model is too broad according to the judge.

If we allow advertising as a legitimate reason to allow machines to read your email, why not also allow Google to offer credit scores, insurance ratings, HR evaluations, and services to private detectives?

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

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.

Consider how it would be if the NSA passed our email through a system that uses machine learning to generate a list of suspects, but no human analyst read the body text of any message.

Somehow I don't think we'd say that they haven't intercepted the email.

So as long as they don't kill people, whatever they do is ok?

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

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

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.

The judge has rejected the argument that the receiver has given permission in general even for their own messages to be intercepted.

I'd suggest: build more apps (or other software) that you want to see in the world, and make sure to finish some projects to your own satisfaction.

I think he has a point, although it's more about the semantics of the term 'information' density.

Shannon information is always measured relative to a receiving context in which it the symbols are understood, and information content is related to the inverse of the probability of observing a particular signal as assessed by the receiver. So from that perspective vinceguidry has a reasonable point.

However really the question being asked is something more like 'data density' and that is generally what people are talking about when the term 'information density' is invoked.

Edit: I see that the original article does indeed refer to Data Density, and that HN title is just wrong.