Text 12944, 92 rader
Skriven 2008-03-15 14:38:24 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 12515 av Jeff Bowman (1:229/500)
Ärende: Google and Gmail
========================
Hello Jeff,

On Wednesday March 12 2008 14:55, you wrote to me:

 Mv>> Google on the other hands harvests user profiles. And these user
 Mv>> profiles are stored in servers under US jurisdiction.

 JB> This is where I definitely don't blame people in other countries for
 JB> being wary of it.

Why limit it to people in other countries?

 JB> We've already seen that Yahoo was willing to turn over the IPs of
 JB> dissidents to the Chinese government.  They operate in the country and
 JB> arguably have to abide by their rules, sure,

As they have to abide by the rules of the US. Why are you not worried about
what your own government can do with the user data mined by the search engines?

 JB> but that sucks pretty hard, and I lost some respect for them as a
 JB> result. Folks are sitting in prison now, or worse, because of it.

And you think that will never happen in the USA?

 Mv>> Google did a wonderful job, but I value my privacy higher.

 JB> I love me some Gmail, so I'm not ready to abandon them for my own
 JB> privacy yet.

I will not touch Gmail with a ten foot pole. Gmail stores your e-mail
"forever". On a server under US jurisdiction. They may promise they will never
turn it over to your government but how can they hold that promise?

For me, a non US citizen it is even worse. The US holds the position that
privacy of mail only applies to US citizens. Mail originating from non US
citizens can - and is - read without a court order. Even if it is only in
transit though the US.

I do not want the US government to read my mail. I do not trust them. While I
may not have much influence on how my mail is routed, I certainly do not have
to make it easier for them by making use of a provider that stores my mail on a
server on US soil.

So, no Gmail for me. I am also very careful at what I write to someone using
Gmail.

 JB> My one comment regarding Ixquick is regarding filtering.  Since it's
 JB> based in your country are you at all worried about your government
 JB> controlling what search results you see?

Why would I be more worried about my own government than your government?

 JB> I have no idea what the policy is in your country for internet
 JB> filtering, but I believe some european countries enforce it, and/or
 JB> are considering it.

There is no internet filtering done here in my country. Not that I know of
anyway and if it is done it is illegal. There has been some talk about blocking
child porn sites, but that would be on the DNS level and that can be easily
circumvented by making use of another DNS server like OpenDns.

 JB> Here in America, we already know that the government has been spying
 JB> on part of the internet backbone, which contains not only most to not
 JB> all of American traffic, but a large majority of foreign traffic as
 JB> well.

As far as i know, that is not done here. ISP are required to retain tracking
records of e-mail - not the content - for some time, but AFAIK it still
requires a court order to release them.

 JB> So Google saving some search results or keeping advertising-related
 JB> data doesn't tend to bother me much considering the government is
 JB> going to find out whatever they want to know one way or another,
 JB> warrant or not.

I go for the principle that they cab not grab what is not there. IxQuick does
not store user information so they can never be forced to hand it over. One can
not hand over what one does not have.

For the same reason, I do not use IMAP. I only use POP3 for mailboxes. With
POP3 the mail is removed from the server after it is downloaded. With IMAP a
copy remains on the server and so is up for grabs.

With POP3 any LEO that wants to read my e-mail will have to come to my house -
with a warrant. Well, maybe they will change the law so that the warrant can be
dispensed with, but then at least I *know* I am under investigation.


Cheers, Michiel

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