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more on Gmail and your privacy
it's been on my "things to read" list for months, and i just finished reading Brad Templeton's excellent essay and analysis, Privacy Subtleties of GMail. (Brad Templeton is chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of my favorite civil rights organizations, and is also known for the free playa phone seen at Burning Man).
Brad offers several conclusions, which i'll share here:
- While there has been over-reaction to GMail, there are some real issues here to be worried about.
- Other webmail providers are doing, or will be doing the same things, meaning these issues apply to all of them, including MSN, Yahoo and others.
- One key risk is that because GMail gets your consent to be more than an e-mail delivery service -- offering searching, storage and shopping -- your mail there may not get the legal protection [the Electronic Communications Privacy Act] gives you on E-mail.
- The storage of e-mail on 3rd party servers for more than 180 days almost certainly causes the loss of those privileges.
- This in turn creates a danger that we may redefine whether e-mail has the "reasonable expectation of privacy" needed for 4th amendment protection.
- Correlation of search and mail has real risks.
- Google and others should architect to encrypt your mail.
- Even the irrational fears over the spooky aspect of advertising being associated with e-mail creates problems that must be addressed.
Brad corroborates all the the concerns about Gmail that i wrote about earlier, but now my concerns have been broadened to include other webmailers, too. Privacy Subtleties of GMail is a long read, but don't let that stop you from reading it if you're interested at all in the subject.
~ Christefano, 24 June 2005
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- this journal entry, more on Gmail and your privacy, was written on 24 June 2005. you can email this entry to yourself or a friend, or leave a comment to be shared below.
- does the world really need another weblog? i believe it does, and i explain some of my reasons why in the first entry, introducing the journal.
- listed below are a handful of entries that have been read the most often. they offer a good sample of what the journal is about.
- who's behind your website? 09 November 2005
- why i don't do Gmail (for now) 06 April 2005
- an alveary of holophrastic words 21 October 2005
- la mira di Mira (the sight of Mira) 18 July 2005
- 10 things to do 15 July 2005
- switching to Dvorak and relearning to type 22 June 2005
- accesskeys and keyboard navigation 20 April 2005
- why i don't do Gmail (for now) 06 April 2005
- when digital dreams come true 27 March 2005
- new features added to the journal 08 March 2005
- introducing the journal 01 March 2005
- if you use instant messaging, you can sign up to automatically receive an IM when new journal entries become available. this service, provided by immedi.at, supports AIM/ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and Jabber.
- subscriptions are also available as "feeds" in both Atom and RSS (Rich Site Summary) formats. if you use a subscription service or an "aggregator" (a news reader on your computer), you can easily add parahuman to your subscription list by selecting the icon of your service or aggregator at the Syndication Subscription Service.
- as far as i'm concerned, RSS could stand for Rather Sophisticated Stuff. if you're wondering what "feeds" or "aggregators" or what any of these other terms mean, both FeedBurner and the BBC News have good explanations that i recommend reading.
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2005/03
2005/04
2005/06
2005/07
2005/08
2005/09
2005/10
2005/11
2006/06
2006/08
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