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Problem

The real problem is computer illiteracy. Let me show you why.

Google offers 1 gig of storage, which is more than 100 times the storage offered by Yahoo or Hotmail, or any Internet service providers that we know about.

Yahoo and Hotmail are providers of wemail; email you access from a browser. They are not "internet service providers". There are many internet service providers that offer more than a gigabyte of storage, but almost no webmail services that offer anywhere near a gigabyte of space just for your email.

In order to enter into a discussion about something, you ideally have to have at least a little knowledge about it. You have to be able to understand the detail. If you cannot, you cannot discuss it in any meaningful way.

After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and become just another database record.

This is bad law, and has nothing to do with Gmail. Gather together a group to remove this law from the american lawbooks; dont penalise business because of it.

Google's relationships with government officials in all of the dozens of countries where they operate are a mystery, because Google never makes any statements about this. But here's a clue: Google uses the term "governmental request" three times on their terms-of-use page for Gmail and once on their privacy page. Google's language means that all Gmail account holders have consented to allow Google to show any and all email in their Gmail accounts to any official from any government whatsoever, even when the request is informal or extralegal, at Google's sole discretion.

This is a problem with governments and not with Google. In fact, any ISP can be asked to reveal information about you in exactly the same way. Throughout Europe new dictats have been issued saying that ISP Data, including emails sent and recieved must be retained for inspection. In the UK, they are going to hold your email for 7 years. Once again, these are problems created by government, not by the providers of services, who would very much prefer not to have to spend time and money looking through your dirty underpants at the command of some beaurocrat. Fix the REAL problem, which is intrusive government. But of course, that is a HARD PROBLEM to face up to and solve. Its easy to attack Google, get millions of hits and become an anti-google celebrity. People who attack google are actually cowards without the guts to address the fundamental flaws in this.

Google has not even formally stated in their privacy policy that they will not keep a list of keywords scanned from incoming email, and associate these with the incoming email address in their database.

Dont send email to Gmail. Write some tools that automagically return all gmail email.

For example, their cookie with the unique ID in it, which expires in 2038, has been tracking all of the search terms you've ever used while searching their main index.

Delete it. Write a tool that deletes Googles cookie every minute. YOU control your computer not Google; act like you have at least a little understanding, and take control of what you do. You of course, could use another search engine...oh you didnt know? There ARE other search engines!

If Google builds a database of keywords associated with email addresses, the potential for abuse is staggering. Google could grow a database that spits out the email addresses of those who used those keywords. ...

Intelligence agencies would love to play with this information.

The fact that Google offers so much storage turns Gmail into something that is uniquely dangerous and creepy.

Everyone who knows anything about any of this knows that ECHELON is already doing this. They already have a database of email addresses indexed against keywords. Now, a private corporation wants to take advantage of the same techniques, and all of a sudden, its a big problem. ECHELON takes this information from you, and you get nothing but spied upon. Google does it, and hundreds of millions of people get enfranchised with a powerful tool. How stupid do you have to be to not see that it is ECHELON that is the real enemy, that it is ECHELON which is the unnacountable, illegal, immoral abomination that is invading your privacy, and the privacy of everyone with email? You would have to be very stupid or a computer illiterate, or a coward to not see this and face up to it. Gmail is not a problem. Governments out of control are the real and present danger to your privacy.

Inappropriate ad matching

Irrelevant. Unless you are the person buying the ad placements. You cannot on the one hand say that the scanning is entirely wrong, and in the next breath say that its bad because its innacurate. Either its bad or its good, full stop.

Esther Dyson, queen of the digerati, gets it wrong

"We're not going to have any choice but to send mail to people at Gmail just to function in the e-mail world," says Daniel Brandt, founder of the Google-Watch.org Web site.

That is a lie. You always have a choice. People who know better refuse to accept unencrypted email. Whats that I hear you say? Yes indeed, you can encrypt your email so that no one can read it while it is in transit to and from you. But you have to be one of the digerati to understand how it works :]

"And what guarantees do we have that all this won't end up on some bureaucrat's desk at some intelligence agency someday?"

Only a computer illiterate could say this. Governments can already do this without Gmail. Gmail doenst change anything at all, except to give people more useful webmail. Anyone who things that your email cant end up on a bureaucrat's desk doesnt know enough to enter this debate.

But those who support Gmail say such privacy concerns are not Google issues so much as constitutional ones, best addressed to Congress and law-enforcement agencies. "They've got a beef with the wrong person. The problem there is the FBI, not Google," says Dyson.

That is entirely correct. The digerati understand perfectly not only the issues of the technology involved, but also the legal aspects. They are smarter than you!

"And in the scheme of things, I'd rather have Google than my employer have access to my personal mail." -- Baltimore Sun, 20 May 2004

That is perfectly reasonable. You have to trust SOMEBODY if you want to be able to send email. You have to trust your postman and the postal service if you want to be able to send snail mail. This is what being alive in a group of people is about. The only way you can be in a position where you do not have to trust someone is when you live alone on an isolated island.

The point is this: Some two-thirds of all Google searches come in from outside the U.S., and Gmail will also have a global reach. We're not dealing with only the FBI (and yes, the same privacy advocates who oppose Gmail are dealing with the FBI), but potentially with hundreds of agencies in dozens of countries.

The real point is that cross border spying agreements were sealed before Gmail, and were inplimented in the form of ECHELON before any of these arguments were brought to your attention. Now that you know about them, you need to get off of the Gmail case and onto the much more difficult case of destroying ECHELON.

Google has no data retention policies,

Neither does ECHELON.

and never comments on their relationships with governments.

Neither does ECHELON.

The problem must be addressed at the source, which is Google.

no, it is ECHELON.

Elitist digerati do a disservice to the entire world when they assume such narrow points of view.

The digerati are the elite. It is a terrible burden to bear, especially when 90% of all the chatter (like gmail is too creepy) is so igmorant, impotent, pathetic and insufferably DULL.

It is a truely narrow point of view to see Gmail only as a tool to read peoples email and track their behaviour. It has been clearly demonstrated that ECHELON and the slew of new directives and laws about data retention are the real threat to peoples privacy. These laws will force google to be evil, whereas in a world where these laws did not exist, all webmail providers and ISPs could simply tell beaurocrats to fuck off when they recieved a request for information on a user without a properly issued warrant.

Gmail is too creepy is just a little too ignorant to be real. I suggest to you that it is a shill site created by M$ or someone connected to them, to try and destroy the viability of Gmail to give M$ time to ramp up the features of the utterly pathetic Hotmail, and forstall the mass exodus of users to a new, FAST, useful service, namely Gmail. This puts gmail is too is creepy into context, explains its existence and the very lame and PR-like name of this "protest" site.

Gmail will be launched. Gmail will change the face of webmail. Deal with it.

If you dont want some beaurocrat reading your email, defang your government. Its that simple.

Dand Brandt is behind "Public Information Research" He is the registrant of the domain:

Registrant:
Public Information Research
PO Box 680635
San Antonio, Texas 78268-0635
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com
Domain Name: GMAIL-IS-TOO-CREEPY.COM
Created on: 06-May-04
Expires on: 06-May-05
Last Updated on: 06-May-04

Administrative Contact:
Brandt, Daniel namebase@earthlink.net
Public Information Research
PO Box 680635
San Antonio, Texas 78268-0635
United States
2105093160 Fax -- 2105093161
Technical Contact:
Brandt, Daniel namebase@earthlink.net
Public Information Research
PO Box 680635
San Antonio, Texas 78268-0635
United States
2105093160 Fax -- 2105093161

Domain servers in listed order:
NS3.WESTSERVER.NET
NS4.WESTSERVER.NET

Here is his Nambebase Social Network Look at the people he is connected to. Astonishing.

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