Could someone please decipher this and give me a readers digest version.
http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/
http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/
The argument against Gmail
- Thread starter Damn True
- Start date
"My tinfoil hat is too tight."Damn True said:
Damn True said:
Mmm... anticorporate hippies hate gmail, SWEET!!!!!
Who wants an account?
Their key argument is that Googles keyword matching technology could amount to "spying". However, any hosted email service could simply logon to their servers and read your entire email if they wanted. Keyword matching technology or not. These anti-gmail people are really pretty dumb.
yahoo mail is all i need. its at 5% of my 250 meg limit..... no adds in my mail either.
1)If you are that worried about privacy you shouldn't be using free web mail anyway.
2) You need to lube that tinfoil hat with LITHIUM based grease. It will be more comfy and help deflect those rays better.
3) Who want's g-mail... I have like 50 invites!
4) G-mail isn't creepy. N8's avatar, now that's creepy!
2) You need to lube that tinfoil hat with LITHIUM based grease. It will be more comfy and help deflect those rays better.
3) Who want's g-mail... I have like 50 invites!
4) G-mail isn't creepy. N8's avatar, now that's creepy!
heres a few choice quotes... basically its saying that gmail is specifically for data mining and privacy invasion, and for the most part, its right.
This is true of most other email systems as well, especially corporate ones. By law organizations are req'd to keep email for audit reasons. Someone else probably has more specifics than I do... I know we keep everything here.dfinn said:
One thing to keep in mind:
Email is NOT private. Period. None of it. Don't put $hit in email that you wouldn't want everyone else seeing.
Encryption is possible, but a PITA for most users.
-S.S.-
Email is NOT private. Period. None of it. Don't put $hit in email that you wouldn't want everyone else seeing.
Encryption is possible, but a PITA for most users.
-S.S.-
Barbaton said:
That's not at all true from what I've seen. I'm a system administrator and I've been managing large corporate mail servers for 5 or 6 years now. I've only heard of one of our smaller shared email hosting customers that wanted to keep a copy of all incoming and outgoing email for "legal" purposes and I talked them out of it (they actually just wanted to snoop on employees, but they were never checking the account so it just got huge and took up all their space).
The answer to Gmail is Yahoo mail. I got two accounts and both of them are 1.0 gb to. Lately they upgraded it from 250 mb to 1.0 gb. mail.yahoo.com
I don't know about that. The anti-gmail argument might be no more paranoid than the idea that the gov't taping every phone conversation in America. The difference is that Google does have the computing power to monitor your email for keywords so they could create marketing trends.Ridemonkey said:
This might not be any more sinster than Google determining whether more people like Coke vs. Pepsi. But think about the phone company tapping your conversations in order to give a better picture of you to telemarketers.
There is no privacy in the computer age. The question is do you want your personal correspondence to become marketing information.
BTW, in that tract there was no mention that Google is actually doing market research on your email, just the potential. And don't think yahoo or hotmail are any better.
The gmail argument is completely and utterly stupid. Anyone who actually thinks that their webmail is 100% private and safe is deluded.
There isn't one single reason to believe that Gmail collects more information than, say, Hotmail or Yahoo. Not one.
There isn't one single reason to believe that Gmail collects more information than, say, Hotmail or Yahoo. Not one.
SkaredShtles said:
Don't put anything in an email you wouldn't want on a postcard!
I like my gmail account!
Bah, a bunch of whiny conspiracy theory loons won't change my opinion of G-mail.
Hmm. On further inspection, it seems that Sarbanes-Oxley section 802 requires email to be kept for 7 years. Am I misinterpreting that?dfinn said:
Edit: There seems to be disagreement whether it's 5 or 7 years, but section 802 (a) (2) seems pretty clear about keeping it:
"The Securities and Exchange Commission shall promulgate, within 180 days, such rules and regulations, as are reasonably necessary, relating to the retention of relevant records such as workpapers, documents that form the basis of an audit or review, memoranda, correspondence, communications, other documents, and records (including electronic records) which are created, sent, or received in connection with an audit or review and contain conclusions, opinions, analyses, or financial data relating to such an audit or review."
Edit 2: Records from an audit must be kept for 5 years (802-a-1). The rules that the SEC "promulgated," presumably within 180 days of S-Ox becoming law, call for 7 year retention of documents or communication, including those electronic.
How compliant is your company with S-OX? Sure you're not talking them into non-compliance if they ever get audited? Don't want to get your CEO in trouble now, or do you?
neaky: 
Although I agree that these complaints are the same with any email provider, it does bring up a few things that are valid.
I mean, data mining, consumer profiling and all of that stuff has been going on for a long time and, a lot of times, I don't think people realize that it's being done and how big and interconnected these kinds of data sets can get. Email dangers seems limited because it's controlled, pretty anonymous and not spatially referenced as far as I know, but it's still an issue.
I mean, data mining, consumer profiling and all of that stuff has been going on for a long time and, a lot of times, I don't think people realize that it's being done and how big and interconnected these kinds of data sets can get. Email dangers seems limited because it's controlled, pretty anonymous and not spatially referenced as far as I know, but it's still an issue.
Busted!!!Barbaton said:Hmm. On further inspection, it seems that Sarbanes-Oxley section 802 requires email to be kept for 7 years. Am I misinterpreting that?
Edit: There seems to be disagreement whether it's 5 or 7 years, but section 802 (a) (2) seems pretty clear about keeping it:
"The Securities and Exchange Commission shall promulgate, within 180 days, such rules and regulations, as are reasonably necessary, relating to the retention of relevant records such as workpapers, documents that form the basis of an audit or review, memoranda, correspondence, communications, other documents, and records (including electronic records) which are created, sent, or received in connection with an audit or review and contain conclusions, opinions, analyses, or financial data relating to such an audit or review."
Edit 2: Records from an audit must be kept for 5 years (802-a-1). The rules that the SEC "promulgated," presumably within 180 days of S-Ox becoming law, call for 7 year retention of documents or communication, including those electronic.
How compliant is your company with S-OX? Sure you're not talking them into non-compliance if they ever get audited? Don't want to get your CEO in trouble now, or do you?
Seriously, I just completed a SOX audit. Not to be f*cked with...
Well that's specifically related to certain types of records, not all general email.Barbaton said:
I work in Regulatory (for the medical device industry) and my boss would have a freakin' heart attack if I told him I had retained emails for 7 years. We have some pretty strict document retention policies and email isn't supposed to stay around for more than 1 year unless archived for a specific purpose.
This sums it up for me... Man my eyes are wide open now.