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Google Privacy: Emails, Off-the-record Chats  (View post)

BUGabundo [PersonRank 7]

Saturday, December 8, 2007
16 years ago6,484 views

I find it hard to believe that "nothing" is recored from gtalk, but is they say so, u are we to deny!?

eheh

Hashim Warren [PersonRank 4]

16 years ago #

in the same way the gov't audits companies to make sure there are no financial shenanigans. perhaps the gov't needs to do the same with Google to make sure there are no privacy shenanigans.

Bill Mac [PersonRank 9]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]BUGabundo

FTP:

<<As for your Google Talk question: When a user takes a chat ’off the record,’ anything exchanged from that point forward is not saved in either user’s Gmail account or anywhere by Google.>>

They don't say *nothing* is recorded. They're saying Google doesn't record it themselves or in users' respective accounts. How do you know there isn't a key-logging trojan on your system recording every keystroke you make? OK, well, *you'd* probably know that, but lots of users might not. And Google definitely would not know. What you've inferred is not what they've implied (or, what the post implied).

[put at-character here]Hashim

I don't think that is a feasible solution. Is Government going to do this with every company that stores user data? Who is going to pay for that? [Financial auditing makes sense because, even though audits probably cost more to conduct than they would generate in recovered tax revenue, the threat of an audit is enough to keep most tax revenues coming in and most companies honest*]. Ensuring users' privacy will never bring in revenue for the government, unless they find a company to be in breach of state privacy laws and levy a nominal fine. But what about when there are no more (or very few) non-compliant companies from which fine monies can be collected?

OK, so what if gov just monitored Goog? Are you saying you trust Yahoo/MS with your data more than Goog? Probably not, so we need to monitor them, too. And what about your ISP? And everybody else's?

*By honest, I mean in strict compliance with tax law. That's not to say tax law is inherently fair or honest, or that companies don't manipulate loopholes in a legal manner. Or even that governments don't even introduce these loopholes with specific intent. Just to say that companies follow existing laws and pay taxes because of the threat of audit/fines. [Somebody let me know if I'm speaking out of my @ss even more so than usual.]

Thomas Dunn [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

I'm a lot older than most Blogoscoped readers. I remember after President Kennedy was killed the whole country went nuts with conspiracy stories. Conspiracy theories were everywhere and everybody had their own version. It was group insanity.

Today, as our society becomes increasingly more complex we are witnessing more and more "conspiratorial thinking" on the part of ordinary citizens. Some social psychologists suggest this phenomenon is the result of our increasingly high level of discomfort in trying to comprehend the world around us. When the stress involved in trying to comprehend the world around us reaches a certain threshold, we tend to "short out" and resort to a "mental comfort food" – the good old conspiracy theory.

Personally I don't think the language used within the Google Privacy Policy is as important, urgent and significant an issue as some would suggest.

Listen folks, we have plenty of things to worry about: tsunamis, terrorists, earthquakes, gang-bangers from the housing projects going on crime sprees, climate change, and the terrifying possibility of another Republican in the White House! With all those things to be concerned about, this issue is very small peanuts to me.

Focus on the important stuff and leave the rest for the chickens to pick through,. there will always be human chickens who come along behind us to pick through the little issues. The leaders of the pack should stay focused on the important things.

By your focus in life, all the world will know whether you are thinking like a leader – or like a chicken.

Matt Cutts [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Google's reply sounded good to me; Philipp, thanks for asking that.

anon [PersonRank 7]

16 years ago #

Does 'off the record' from google provide encryption?

If enough users demanded real privacy options from google we would have them but too many people give them a free pass on this. I would very happily pay a premium to prevent google from logging/saving everything I do and from building a profile on me. Please google make some sort of premium google-apps account with privacy options that optionally prevent logging/saving/profiling/forever. Thanks in advance!

shadow [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

google did say that google talk will be encrypted "before its final release".

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

> I would very happily pay a premium to prevent
> google from logging/saving everything I do and
> from building a profile on me.

What about e.g. emails you're sending and receiving in Gmail (if you are using Gmail)? They are incredibly revealing in terms of building a profile. Do you want Google to delete those too, meaning you won't be able to access your mails anymore when you paid the premium?

Bill Mac [PersonRank 9]

16 years ago #

I think we should just dismantle the Internet altogether and go back to having ponies deliver our posts. With blind drivers and postal workers, of course.

anon [PersonRank 7]

16 years ago #

Hi Philipp. They should let you opt-out of having a profile of any type built when you chose certain settings such as turning off history or Gmail ads (prevent keyword scanning). Serving ads based on a current search query is far more accurate for me and much more likely to be clicked on. I do not want tailored search results of any kind. Keeping email on their servers that I have chosen to keep if fine until I delete it but do not want residual copies kept (example:.."may remain in our offline backup systems." forever?). I'd like email to be stored using encryption. And I don't want email being scanned for keywords and a profile being built on those keywords and the people and places I communicate with or that are in my contact list, IP addresses, times, or from other information that they could gather from other services I use (in or outside of Google).

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

The encryption part of emails wouldn't help tho if your Gmail account is hacked. Because with your password, the abuser would see all your emails like you would – completely non-encrypted.

debjyoti das [PersonRank 1]

16 years ago #

I hope the corporation recognizes that "one" of the major reasons that made Google successful is the assurance that the users keep on Google about the protection of personal data against misuse of any kind including snooping. I'm however satisfied with Google's attitude and the past records of use of our data [[ddas-edEN]]

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