Does GMail set a precedent?
Wired News has an interesting article by Ryan Singel that covers the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference and asks some thought-provoking questions about the implications of Google's GMail. Maybe I've become a cynic, but I never had an expectation that e-mail provided much of a shield for my privacy.
Sure, there are folks who use PGP, or some other encryption tool, to sign their mail and make it more secure. But for the majority of what I send, it's always seemed a bit too much work for too little reward. Still, the article does raise some good points and is well worth reading.
Wired News: Gmail Still Sparking Debates
Speakers at this year's Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference said privacy concerns about Google's upcoming Gmail service are mostly overblown, but they said the controversy over the free Web-based e-mail service has forced the industry to address several murky legal questions about e-mail scanning and storage.
These include questions about why communications providers have the right to scan for spam, but not for ad triggers; whether Gmail's scanning sets a precedent for government initiatives to search all e-mail for incriminating keywords; and whether corporations have the responsibility to tell their customers that their stored e-mails have little protection from law enforcement.