Gmail Snooping In Your Inbox?

[Colin Dunstan]

SPDrivers.net runs an interesting newsline. Apparantly someone's Gmail account was terminated because of suspicious files (few cracks and key generators) stored in his account:

Darkrest suspects that the Google bot which searches for certain key words for advertisers is doing more than just searching advertisement phrases; he claims that the bot is also searching for words that are associated with illegal files, such as key generators and cracks. "I was never told why my account was cancelled, once I logged into my Gmail account I noticed that my files were missing....two days later, my account was terminated. This sux man!" The user doesn't deny having illegal files stored on his PC, however states that Google has no business looking at his emails.

That makes me feel kinda uneasy. Didn't Google promise us that it would never scan for content, just ads? Curious to hear your opinion about it.

[TadW]

That is funny. Imagine Microsoft was doing this with Hotmail (who knows, perhaps they are, but at least they wouldn't admit it). I think people should wake up and face what Google is all about: a fat cooperation who intends to make its shareholders happy by making quick money. Stop giving it that stupid Google-the-once-so-great-student-idea-bonus.

[stareja]

Actually, what they promise is "No human reads your email to target ads or related information to you without your consent."

Google's Gmail Privacy Policy is located at:
https://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/privacy.html

The great majority of it is pretty standard among web service providers.

However, in their help pages (login required to view), they have this:

"Is Google reading my email?

Answer
Google is NOT reading your mail. Privacy is an issue we take very seriously. Gmail is a technology-based program. Advertising and related information are shown using a completely automated process. Ads are selected for relevance and served by Google computers using the same contextual advertising technology that powers our AdSense program. This technology enables Google to effectively target dynamically changing content, such as email, or news stories.

Because the ads and Related Pages are matched to information that is of interest to you, we hope you'll find them relevant and useful.

If you'd like to know more about how Google handles your Gmail information, please read our Gmail Privacy Policy. "

The way the above is worded infers Google as an entity, which would include bots and software. So, Google is clearly not following it's printed word.

Another possibility is that someone could have "turned him in", so to speak, since Google maintains compliance to the DMCA, which could include the email flowing through it's servers:
http://www.google.com/dmca.html

It's also possible that they take a proactive approach to the DMCA and scan for such items.

Even with all of this, every user has to agree to Google's Gmail Terms of Service. I'm not sure if you have to be logged in to see this or not, but here's the link:
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/terms_of_use.html

In it, you agree to the following (excerpt, of course):

"Proper Use. You agree that you are responsible for your own communications and for any consequences thereof. Your use of the Service is subject to your acceptance of and compliance with the Agreement, including the Gmail Program Policies ("Program Policies"), located at http://www.google.com/gmail/help/program_policies.html, or such other URL as Google may provide from time to time. You agree that you will use the Service in compliance with all applicable local, state, national, and international laws, rules and regulations, including any laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from your country of residence. You shall not, shall not agree to, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to: (i) use the Service to upload, transmit or otherwise distribute any content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, abusive, fraudulent, obscene, contains viruses, or is otherwise objectionable as reasonably determined by Google; (ii) upload, transmit or otherwise distribute content that infringes upon another party's intellectual property rights or other proprietary, contractual or fiduciary rights or obligations; (iii) prevent others from using the Service; (iv) use the Service for any fraudulent or inappropriate purpose; or (v) act in any way that violates the Program Policies, as may be revised from time to time. Violation of any of the foregoing may result in immediate termination of this Agreement, and may subject you to state and federal penalties and other legal consequences. Google reserves the right, but shall have no obligation, to investigate your use of the Service in order to determine whether a violation of the Agreement has occurred or to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request."

Again, this is pretty standard among Internet services. It may be that Google is just deciding to hold you to your word. In the case above, they would be within their rights to scan mail for violations

It's important to note that most web mail providers do the same things listed above. They key is that Google provides a much larger space to store email, so data mining into personal trends and patterns will yield more results for advertising. If you're not going to use Gmail, you should consider not using web mail at all as they all have the same potential fallacies that Gmail has. If anything, you should consider nit using the based on the fact that they've gone against their written word.

Remember folks, despite what everyone thinks, email is not private. Anywhere along the line of communication, your email can be intercepted and read by quite a few different people.

And, in case anyone wants to know, yes, I have a Gmail account that I actively use. At the very least, I hope it's been informative.

[Alexander Turcic]

I agree with you, stareja. It is the right of every ISP to remove improper content (as definied in the TOS) and to disable the person's account who is responsible for the improper content. The difference here may be that ISPs normally only act in removing files upon external request.

How does Google (or better, as you said it, its computer bot) know that the content was indeed "inproper"? Just by a mere judging of the filenames? It is impossible for the bot to know for sure, unless Google invented the first AI. "No human reads your email to target ads or related information to you without your consent." - in other words, some real person must have decided that the content uploaded was improper, and henceforth the Gmail account holder should have been notified beforehand.

[stareja]

Alexander,

I realize that most of your post was rhetorical, which is good, since I don't have any answers for the questions you've posed. My response was mostly informative.

Obviously, "someone" must have read the messages that violated Gmail's TOS. However, that does go against their statment that no human is reading your email. I also refuse to believe that their search technology is *that* good. as the RIAA and such have proved, searching for filenames just doesn't cut it and, as you indicated, requires AI or "human" levels of decision-making.

It's possible that there's some technology that reports possible infringements, sucks the content out of the email, thus separating it, if only temporary, from the person sending/recieving it and delivers it to a human to decide if it's a violation. That would put Google in the position of not actually reading your email, but still be able to prevent infringement. The possibilites range from software we're unaware of (like the scenario above) to outright lying to the userbase (something I don't put any company above doing).

However, without a statement from Google, it's impossible to tell. Even with that, it's even more difficult to tell if that statement, heavily PR'ed as it would be, is even the truth.

I think the grater "truth" that should be learned here is that email privacy is an illusion and, if your email privacy is that important to you, it's time to start researching encryption. at the very least, you shouldn't be using web-based email services.

A very intersting discussion, indeed.

[cbarnett]

I answered "No Way!" in the poll, but find that I agree with Alexander's opinions. The character in question should have been notified, and gained consent. Or given him the option of removing the offending files or information himself. Otherwise, this will only hurt Google and Gmail, which I'm sure they _don't_ want.

Craig.

[Francesco]

I guess the moral of this is: the longer your TOS is, the bigger your chance to do whatever you want.
I think it was Hacker who pointed out the lack of privacy in gmail. Let me find the thread and I'll come back to you.

[Colin Dunstan]

Interesting discussion indeed. There is a first response from Google appearing at InsideGoogle:

As for the question: "Does Gmail scan email for illegal programs?" The answer is no we do not. I'm not sure what the details are with this specific user and why and whether the account was discontinued - we don't have his gmail address. Either way, our terms of service would keep me from talking about the details of any individual account.

Which of course raises the new question whether that Darknest character who had originally made the claim that Google was snooping your inbox is a fraud.