Google Mail is coming

[FromLine]

Originally posted by oysterquartz
Further, can you cite the portion of the FM TOS which lays out in detail what the data retention policy is .....

Oysterquartz,

Quite frankly, I think you're more focused at this point in having a debate on a matter which is virtually a non-issue because Fastamail's privacy matters have not been brought to question (other than one minor question in the appropriate FM forum asking how long data is maintained, which has been asked and answered), and, if there is such a concern, perhaps you should read the FM TOS itself, and if something concerns you, I suggest you quote the sentence, phrase, wording, paragraph, etc. and raise your question in the appropriate FM forum.

The concerns within this thread are directly attributed to Google's declared written privacy policy.

If you have a direct concern about Fastmail's written policy or question or need clarification on the degree of lattitude, then post it and/or question it in the FM forum.

This debate you're keeping alive is virtually going nowhere (and quite an irrelevant tangent talking about friends and family members of Google founders, employees, etc.) which is independant from the written terms of service policies.

P.S.

I will ignore any further of your tangentials and irrelevant arguments including the off-topic matters of "friends", "trust", "how well we know", or "who's dating who" at Google.

[FromLine]

Originally posted by oysterquartz
I just re-read Googles Privacy Policy. Its fairly comprehensive. Can you tell me what's so objectionable?

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/privacy.html

1) Consumer watchdogs tear into Google's new e-mail service

2) World Privacy Forum

I concur with the objectionalbe arguments in those two articles, and elsewhere. There's plenty of other informative articles for which readers and users may judge for themselves. If you don't find it objectionable, that's fine. You can use their service. But I, and many others, will neither use the service, nor communicate by email with a gmail user, unless the policies are changed.

[xmailer]

Originally posted by FromLine
Quite frankly, I think you're more focused at this point in having a debate on a matter which is virtually a non-issue because Fastamail's privacy matters have not been brought to question

Actually, Fastmail's "privacy matters" have been "brought to question" in this thread, as have many other essential "non-issues", but primarily as a red herring, presumably to "prove" that there is "nothing new" pertaining to issues of privacy with regard to the upcoming gmail service. But if, in fact, there truly was nothing "new", or different, in the way google.com apparently intends use its users' personal information, this debate never would have begun in the first place.

[FromLine]

Originally posted by xmailer
Actually, Fastmail's "privacy matters" have been "brought to question" . . . pertaining to issues of privacy . . .

Well, if there is an FM privacy matter that you, or anyone else, finds questionable, or you have a specific question about issues of privacy, then so-state and post them here with specific references or concerns. You'll likely get a timely and accurate response.

[xmailer]

Originally posted by FromLine
Well, if there is an FM privacy matter that you, or anyone else, finds questionable, or you have a specific question about issues of privacy, then so-state and post them here with specific references or concerns. You'll likely get a timely and accurate response.

Thanks, I appreciate that fact, but I personally have no particular issues with fastmail's policies. My main point was only to suggest that I think that that and other concerns not directly related to gmail's "privacy" policies are essentially red herrings to the concerns specifically related to gmail as exressed in this thread, as it seems clear that the latter do represent a "departure" from current practices.

[Nektar1973]

Originally posted by FromLine
1) Consumer watchdogs tear into Google's new e-mail service

2) World Privacy Forum

I concur with the objectionalbe arguments in those two articles, and elsewhere. There's plenty of other informative articles for which readers and users may judge for themselves. If you don't find it objectionable, that's fine. You can use their service. But I, and many others, will neither use the service, nor communicate by email with a gmail user, unless the policies are changed.

Unfortunetly Google is so big that there will be a large mass of sign-ups for the service from people who don`t know any better or don`t care.
What might put a dent on that is what you say about not communicating with those users, that will be noticed by all, even the users that don`t care about the issues.

[FromLine]

Originally posted by Nektar1973
What might put a dent on that is what you say about not communicating with those users, that will be noticed by all, even the users that don`t care about the issues.

How significant or insignificant this might be is another story. However, to clarify, I will not communicate by email with an @gmail.com address because:

If I reply, my name, email address, and personal information in the body of the messages will be stored in google's servers and may be analyzed by Google Inc. for targeted advertisement purposes.

This may include, but not limited to, the IP Header information.

They match up this information with future search results, or find other things on the web that match the name, email address, header info, etc. and indentify me when using other information to place targeted ads based upon information contained in my personal and private email message.

How many people will be educated about this big brother technique, again, is another story. But my message will be, if you send me an email from Gmail, you won't get a reply from because of the above reasons. If I have the senders phone number or alternate email address, I may contact them and let you know why. Or, send a reply - with a new email message - with a bogus email in the From header simply stating whey I can't respond or communicate with an @gmail.com email address.

It's far too early to tell, but I recall a few years ago when some large ISP's such as Earthlink and SBC were completely blocking anything from @bigfoot.com because they felt there was too much spam associated, which really irritated those that use @bigfoot.com legitimately.

Now, if ISP's and/or email providers gave an option to automatically reject email from @gmail.com, that would be interesting (although unlikely).

[hadaso]

Originally posted by FromLine
How significant or insignificant this might be is another story. However, to clarify, I will not communicate by email with an @gmail.com address because:

Hey, Adam, why not just write down your messages on paper, scan it, and send them the BMP's: their 1Gig mailboxes won't mind and it will be a long time before Google uses OCR on images to match ads...

[FromLine]

Originally posted by hadaso
why not just write down your messages on paper, scan it, and send them the BMP's

Good idea, or send an image with something like this:

http://e.apr30.ml1.net/nogm.jpg

That's the way I post email addresses on my web site for protection. I like the idea of sending them an image file. I could use a bogus email address in the From header and using Fastmail on the web, my IP address is shielded.

Also, the link above, using the alias "apr30", will expire on April 30th.

[oysterquartz]

Originally posted by FMRocks


No, it's NOT an iron clad document designed to protect the user. But nor is it written specifically to infringe on people's rights. The fact that Google explicitly makes the user agree to keeping their messages on the server forever is, makes (in my judgment) Google's policy written specifically to infringe on those rights.

Can you show me where in the Google Privacy Policy this is stated? In the recent document I read, its quite similar to Yahoo's, etc., and I'd judge with most providers actual practice.

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/privacy.html

Email contents and usage. The contents of your Gmail account also are stored and maintained on Google servers in order to provide the service. Google's computers process the information in your email for various purposes, including formatting and displaying the information to you, delivering targeted related information (such as advertisements and related links), preventing unsolicited bulk email (spam), backing up your email, and other purposes relating to offering you Gmail. Because we keep back-up copies of data for the purposes of recovery from errors or system failure, residual copies of email may remain on our systems for some time, even after you have deleted messages from your mailbox or after the termination of your account. Google employees do not access the content of any mailboxes unless you specifically request them to do so (for example, if you are having technical difficulties accessing your account) or if required by law, to maintain our system, or to protect Google or the public.

Now please show me the FM data retention policy in the TOS or privacy policy and cite the relevant paragraph where your data is absolutely deleted as soon as you delete it from your account and/or terminate your account, and it isn't being retained for "some time".

[oysterquartz]

Originally posted by FromLine

P.S.

I will ignore any further of your tangentials and irrelevant arguments including the off-topic matters of "friends", "trust", "how well we know", or "who's dating who" at Google. [/b]

Firstly, you're the one who brought up the whole issue, indicating that your judgement was based on the fact you "knew" and "trusted" the FM founders. You can't have it both ways now, but if hypocrisy dictates you do so, you can ignore away

I am bringing up hypothetical "concerns" about FM's privacy policy (and that of any provider really) and indicating that Google's is far more detailed and explicit in many areas.

Sorry, but a FM employee's/principals addressing the data retention policy issue in these forums is hardly the same as addressing it in detail in the TOS/Privacy Policy.

Why is it that FM fans refuse to debate the merits (positive and negative) of the service in comparison to others. Things are never Black and White, and nothing's ever perfect.

If the market decides these matters, which service do you think will dwarf the other, and what does that say about the respective privacy policies.

Lastly, I take it you haven't recently read Google's privacy policy, since you didn't address my questions in my previous post. On balance, I think its quite fair and direct.

To all of you who celebrate Happy Easter! I'm off to roast the traditional lamb on a spit now (no offence to the vegetarians amongst us).

P.S. FromLine: To paraphrase Monty Python, I love a good debate. I don't get aggravated by posts on these forums, and trust that you don't either Happy Holidays to you!

[Shelded]

[Moderator:
We are interested in gmail and this minute debate on the TOS comparison to FM seems peripheral to that. As long as it keeps returning somehow to discusson of gmail the TOS subtopic appears, um, relevent. Still, please remember that this is a really long thread and a lot of views were going to it.

Also please try to mind the tone of the posts. Some opportunity exists there, though it is on the edge. I suspect that if this continues to be a difficult thread we will close it due to a number of reasons.]

[Shelded]

Originally posted by Spin
When I go to that site I see the message:


So are you a beta tester? Or how did you come across that site. It just makes me curious because I see the message "You have successfully signed up for Gmail...

_________
Spin

Perhaps Google crawled the page and it's in the engine

[FMRocks]

Originally posted by oysterquartz
Can you show me where in the Google Privacy Policy this is stated? In the recent document I read, its quite similar to Yahoo's, etc., and I'd judge with most providers actual practice.

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/privacy.html

You quoted it yourself. This phrase right here:

... residual copies of email may remain on our systems for some time, even after you have deleted messages from your mailbox or after the termination of your account.

"Some time" without defining what it is is the same as forever to me.

Now please show me the FM data retention policy in the TOS or privacy policy and cite the relevant paragraph where your data is absolutely deleted as soon as you delete it from your account and/or terminate your account, and it isn't being retained for "some time".

Umm... that's the Guilty Until Proven Innocent standard. I use the Innocent Until Proven Guilty standard. That is, they don't explicitly say they will retain it, so they don't. Besides, their FAQ pretty clearly states that your messages you deleted must be recovered within a week (if you want). Besides it is not FM that's on trial here, so to speak.

Why is it that FM fans refuse to debate the merits (positive and negative) of the service in comparison to others. Things are never Black and White, and nothing's ever perfect.

Because there is a different thread for doing so in the FM forum.

[FMRocks]

With apologies to shelded, I want to just clarify where my objections to GMail privacy policies are. And this is besides the point of mail retention on their servers (I think we've had about as much constructive discussion on that as we were going to).:

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/privacy.html

1. Cookies:

Google may share cookie information among its other services for the purpose of providing you a better experience.

In ther words, they can link your email address (which has identifiable personal info) and thereby contents of your email with your search pattern, your Group use, etc. Google also explicitly states, "Gmail – may not be available if you refuse cookies."

2. Their patent application that allows them to put commercial breaks in my email. Yes, right now they are not doing that, but with this patent, in my judgment it shows intention to use it if need be. I am not a big fan of that.

Although, I must say that other than the above issues and email retention, Google's privacy policy is in fact comprehensive and convincing. And I do know this: Google's target is Yahoo and Hotmail, not smaller providers. And to that end, I wish them full success. I am not for once losing site of the fact that Google is a huge success story. An upstart by two people in Silicon Valley without (at the beggining) a whole lot of capital today is shaking the tech world and threatening the domincance of giants like Microsoft and Yahoo. Admirable indeed.