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For a while now, when there is a question or something in an email that requires a response, there are some automated response options at the bottom of the email. Now for that to happen they must be processing the content of emails with some form of AI.
Now I am not the paranoid type, and accept that some on-line services need to process a certain amount of data in order to provide personalization of the service they offer, so for example I am happy for google to use location services to improve what is offered to me. But I just feel that processing the content of emails is a step too far, and an intrusion into my privacy (and bloody cheeky).
I am thinking about reporting it, I can't see how it doesn't infringe my right to privacy, but I am not sure who to.
its in their t&c isnt it.
basically they own you
Being in their T&C doesn't make it right or legal.
Don't use Gmail then.
(Obviously by signing up to a Gmail account you would have agreed to their t&c so given them permission)
Gmail have been scanning the contents of emails for years. In around 2014 I think, they upgraded their terms of service to state that fact more explicitly, as it had previously only been hinted at in mumbo jumbo weaselly legalese.
They even scan the contents of emails people send you, so even if they use a private secure email provider, by emailing you they expose themselves
You can report it but all privacy organisations are well aware and have been for years and it has survived a number of court challenges and oversight body investigations.
They claimed about a year ago they were going to stop scanning emails and use "other methods" (unspecified) to Target ads to Gmail users.
Switch to something like protonmail and slip them a few quid to not read your emails. Delete Facebook. Stop helping these companies monetise your data.
It's great, really helped speed up some replies, of course I conduct all my really secret comms using semaphore these days just to to safe.
Google are all over your data (and mine), it's the price for using their services. Unlike Facebook and some of the other big tech companies they're pretty open about it. They have popups every couple of months explicitly telling you what they do with your data, linking to where you can go to manage what they're able to do with it and asking you to confirm your acceptance so it's hard to see how you've a genuine complaint to take anywhere.
You can get your email services elsewhere but there'll be a price to pay in convenience and/or money.
Unlike Facebook and some of the other big tech companies they’re pretty open about it.
Hahahaha (I hope that wasn't a serious statement)
It is funny though, I wonder how many objected to ID cards on the principle of data gathering, but are then happy to allow corporations to go far further in slicing away privacy.
Hahahaha (I hope that wasn’t a serious statement)
Well, it's all relative I suppose but if you're concerned about the way companies use your data then ensuring you're aware of the T&Cs you're signing up to trumps complaining on a forum after the fact. If you don't think they're being open enough for your liking just vote with your feet.
If you don’t think they’re being open enough for your liking just vote with your feet.
or maybe google and others are breaking the law, and need to be brought inline. IMO t&c are quite deliberately long and obfuscated in order to bludgeon consumers into just accepting, and if everyone does the same, we don't really have a choice.
It is funny though, I wonder how many objected to ID cards on the principle of data gathering, but are then happy to allow corporations to go far further in slicing away privacy.
+1(000000)
Google stated many years ago that they scanned emails. Of course they made one statement that everyone slowly forgot about.
Their email scanning is also used to block spam, gmail is pretty good on that score basically because scanning X billion emails gives a better chance of seeing patterns than your ISP scanning a few hundred thousand or simply blocking IP addresses.
Voting with your feet leaves you in a position with no smartphone, no bank account, no income and no shelter because the banks, lawyers and letting agents are all at it too. It's not really a viable option.
Which is why those nice people in the EU helped us take back control and made processing of personal data without a strong legitimate reason illegal. And one of these days Google might comply with the law. But not yet.
OP - I don't think that what Google are going with Gmail is personalised to you (yet, see the end of the linked post), so you're actually quite well hidden in the masses. You should be more concerned about their advertising profile, which is, or their location profile which near as dammit is.
they haven't buried it in their T&Cs though, they've advertised it prominently as a feature:
https://blog.google/products/gmail/save-time-with-smart-reply-in-gmail/
Apparently you'll be able to turn it off soon though. For a long time Gmail analysed your emails to deliver ads too, although it currently doesn't, it just analyses your location, youtube use, search history and all the rest of it (if you allow it to, and possibly if you don't allow it)
or maybe google and others are breaking the law, and need to be brought inline.
Which laws?
If only we had people who could test such theories, perhaps make some kind of judgement on them
Which laws?
The right to privacy.
If only we had people who could test such theories, perhaps make some kind of judgement on them
Quite, but often it needs objections from the public to start the ball rolling, which is why i said in the op, that I don't know who the relevant authority is to report my concerns to. Corporations love to push the boundaries, it is quite sad that it is so widely accepted as an acceptable practice.
Right so you don't know what laws then.
But I just feel that processing the content of emails is a step too far, and an intrusion into my privacy (and bloody cheeky).
I am thinking about reporting it, I can’t see how it doesn’t infringe my right to privacy, but I am not sure who to.
Firstly you need to work out what is actually happening and how the data is being used.If none of the data is stored or associated with an individual or in fact read by a human how is your privacy being invaded?
Almost 15 years ago the CEO of sun microsystems (sold for $1billion) said: "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." Imagine how much privacy we have now.
Google processes the data in your e-mails in order to give you better advertising. There is an old case that discussed this. They argued that at the time they were able to give you much bettter storage of your e-mails than the competition due to the revenue of target advertising. Thus they were processing e-mails for the benefit of their customers.
The controversial point was when they were processing the incoming e-mails to a gmail account of users which had not signed up with gmail T&Cs.
I wrote an essay on this exact topic, wish I could find it so could link some cases....
Right so you don’t know what laws then.
Firstly you need to work out what is actually happening and how the data is being used.If none of the data is stored or associated with an individual or in fact read by a human how is your privacy being invaded?
That is an interesting interpretation of how you think the legal system should work, would you apply it to other areas of life, or just technology corporations. I also don't know what law would be broken if I was punched in the face while walking down the street, I am pretty sure I have a right to not be punched in the face while going about my daily business, I would be confident enough of that right to report it to the police without first having to study law.
It would be a pretty sad state of affairs if the public were not allowed the protection of the law, when they do not have a knowledge of the law. It is unfortunatly though the way corporations frequently treat peoples legal rights.
If you're looking for a law, GDPR articles 21 and 22 are a good start.
I am pretty sure I have a right to not be punched in the face while going about my daily business
but what if you signed up to a service which clearly told you you'd get punched in face?
Being in their T&C doesn’t make it right or legal.
Yes it does, and as said it's an advertised feature also. With GDPR you agreed again and privacy side of it will have been spelt out clearly. Though processing the mail is different to storing personal information from it. Yes it's processed on their servers but then your mail is on their servers anyway which you've agreed to.
Don't like it, don't use it.
FYI, Microsoft do the same with Outlook/Hotmail and Office 365 accounts. For business it's useful when it comes up with actions to schedule a meeting you've just mentioned.
And yeah anti-spam and malware protection requires analysis of the mail.
P.s. Your mail travels through the Internet from source to destination often through numerous servers that pass mail on, which are likely handling the mail as plain text unencrypted. This is one way that spammers get email lists, via compromised mail agent servers.
but what if you signed up to a service which clearly told you you’d get punched in face?
As I posted earlier, the average person would need 76 days, per year, to read all the privacy T&C's they are faced with, I will give a prize to anyone who can honestly answer that they have read all those T&C's and understand them.
Yes it does,
No it doesn't.
Funnily enough, I watched a movie about all this the other day on netflix I think, called Creepy Line. https://www.thecreepyline.com/
Recommended, if you need telling the blatantly obvious. Your info/data is the price you pay for using their services, it also includes google docs etc.
I think saying something like 'it's so they can serve you better adverts', is looking at it the wrong way around, and is still stuck in the mindset that they're somehow putting us first. Serving you better adverts allows them to charge a higher premium for advertising.
As the film outlines however, contents of your emails should be the least of your concerns, there is evidence of google (and others), using the info they hold about you for other reasons; such as nudging you one way or the other in your beliefs and political leanings, and censorship etc. This is why the annoying handwavy response of those that say things like 'I have nothing to hide', are missing the point, because this affects all of us, and the whole of the internet. It's a very interesting documentary and explains some of the techniques being used.
If you think that's bad, WordPress have started redacting user-written content.
No it doesn’t
Feel free to post the law they are breaking then by advertising the feature, including it in the T&C and GDPR policy you agreed to (the law is very strict here with huge fines).
So you read and understand t&c’s, but can’t read and understand this thread 😂
If you think that’s bad, WordPress have started redacting user-written content.
A quick search shows there's a Redactor plugin, is that what you mean?
As I posted earlier, the average person would need 76 days, per year, to read all the privacy T&C’s they are faced with, I will give a prize to anyone who can honestly answer that they have read all those T&C’s and understand them.
It still doesn't make the t&c's illegal though does it. You have started from the premise that something is illegal but don't actually know if it is or not. Despite the scrutiny of data and protection at the moment.
A quick search shows there’s a Redactor plugin, is that what you mean?
No. I mean they (WordPress) are editing folks content.
And one of these days Google might comply with the law. But not yet.
Isn't posting comments like that without proof slander (regardless of whether your right or not)? If your going to make such a sweeping statement at least back it up with evidence.
The right to privacy.
I'm confused what your actual concern is (as an "owner" of a Gmail account). I should perhaps address my bias by saying that I actually think the features (many of which were part of the Google Inbox offering, and so have been around for a while and recently have been moved to mainstream Gmail) are actually pretty helpful, and useful.
Is there a loss of privacy if a machine automatically processes your email, and automatically makes some suggestions based on its content that is provided only to you? Not that I see. Unless you go ultra niche with your email provision, set up your own servers and use command line tools then every email service and software you use will have some degree of processing involved:
1. Hiding the headers so you see the interesting bits.
2. Presenting the HTML content in a pretty format.
3. Showing the time in your local timezone rather than the timezone of the sender (or UTC).
4. Showing the user's name as it is in your address book rather than the email address.
5. Potentially marking the email as spam or moving it to a spam folder.
Of course most email clients have had the ability to do more, like apply rules that autoforward emails from certain addresses, or contain certain words etc. You have just had to manually configure these rules. Is applying some machine learning to prioritise emails, suggest responses etc, really that different - just smarter?
Now you have the option to quit Gmail if you don't like their service (you can also turn off some of the features like "nudges" and "smart compose"). If you've not closed your Gmail account its hard to believe this is so serious you believe they are infringing your right to privacy*. You can of course configure and maintain your own mail server, and client etc to avoid the risk of unwanted processing. The potentially "bigger" issue is every time you send a message to a gmail user (and not all gmail users have gmail addresses - mine is @mycompany.com) google will still be processing your information. Its difficult to see how that infringes the senders privacy though (even ignoring the inherent "non secure" nature of email). Unless of course google are profiling or leaking information they build on the sender through messages they receive - but I've not seen any evidence they are.
* if you mean your Human Rights - then generally its states (and their institutions) not corporations that infringe them; if you mean your rights to data protection then its not quite the same thing - but unless they were leaking the data I still don't see your concern.
there's an interesting point raised somewhere here. To many (including me) it's self-evident that Gmail will be reading your emails for whatever reasons, and that I consent to that by my use of their service.
But clearly not to others. There are probably people out there who would be alarmed if they realised that TomTom know where they drive when they use their satnav, or that their use of a Tesco clubcard means that Tesco know they're now expecting a second child etc.
I guess it's a combination of people not understanding how technology works, information not being made prominent enough, and people not really caring to think about it.
We can argue that the world of IT and the internet has developed and changed rapidly, and people struggle to keep up - but you see similar behaviour in other sectors too.
You see something like Brighthouse and on a £600 sofa it says 'APR 75%, total repayments £2217.45'. Surely people take that on board when they're signing up? The information is clearly there for all to see. And interest rates aren't new. But people are still surprised when it ends up costing them an arm and a leg.
How much does it fall on the consumer to consider what they're signing up for? And how far does the business need to go to make sure they're providing enough information?
I definitely agree that less scrupulous companies bury shit in their T&Cs, and that needs to be stopped. But also I do think the consumer needs to think for themselves a bit.
for my real email 🙂
and I'm going create a new gmail account just to get at playstore on the tablet.
I dont like it either . But its there toy and money making machine.
it’s self-evident that Gmail will be reading your emails for whatever reasons, and that I consent to that by my use of their service.
And in this case semantics are important. Reading or looking at the words. They are different things
"Isn’t posting comments like that without proof slander (regardless of whether your right or not)? "
If you think that then reposting would be a bad idea, because now you're liable too. It would be libel but only if it lowers Google's reputation. Given that the same allegation was published in pretty much every newspaper in Europe yesterday I think we're OK.
Would be ironic if possibly the world's largest publisher of defamatory content and one of the biggest defenders of the right to publish anything made a fuss about it.
Starting at the beginning. GDPR article 5 s1; Personal data shall be ... collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed ...
So when I send an email to Gmail the purposes are to deliver the email to the recipient. Any further processing of *my* personal data isn't allowed. That's independent of whatever the recipient may have agreed to.
Even as a recipient there's nothing in the privacy policy to explain that they scan emails, just some vague content that is most definitely not explicit, as the regulations require.
Now turn to Google's log of your phone calls and text messages. Why is Google collecting that? What is it doing with it? How do you stop them? All rights under Article 5 and Article 21 and yet completely opaque.
If Gmail SMart Reply is freaking you out, you'd best not use their latest feature then.
I'm not that bothered about privacy at this level personally. The benefits of the features outweigh any concerns I have, and the new autocomplete stuff saves me loads of time.