Quote:
Originally Posted by jgaiser
Folks, unless you're encrypting your email, all the email servers in the world have plaintext access to all your email. It's like writing on the back of a postcard.
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There are differences that I think are incredibly important. First, if I write all of my correspondence on postcards, I understand that it isn't private, but neither do I expect the post office to be building a database that correlates my next correspondence with all of my previous ones.
Knowing that any individual could be reading any one of my messages is
vastly different than knowing that an individual has access to all of my correspondence at once. Someone finding a postcard slightly erodes my privacy in the sense that someone has a snapshot of some aspect of my life. Google, though, is trying to determine (and is apparently succeeding at determining) what advertisements will convert to sales for each individual person.
The other important distinction is that with the Post Office, I have the option of either sending a postcard or spending slightly more money and sending a sealed letter. This is on a per-message basis and requires that I do no more setup than buying an envelope (which the Post Office will sell me if I'm even that shortsighted). Google doesn't offer me that option.
For me, it boils down to the difference between one person looking at my house while driving by and another obviously casing the joint. Google's reasoning is that since I haven't put up any protections against someone looking at my house, it's OK for them to look in all the windows and maybe try a few doors to see what brand of soda I drink and if I might be in the market for a new TV.