Fwd: philosophical question about gmail

Bruce Dawson jbd at codemeta.com
Thu Aug 5 08:03:00 EDT 2004


On Wed, 2004-08-04 at 18:22, Bill Sconce wrote:
> On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 17:22:56 -0400
> "Kevin D. Clark" <clark_k at pannaway.com> wrote:
> 
> > After all, the email was private and I never agreed to Gmail's
> > policies.  I never really wanted anybody to actually profit
> > (technically speaking) from the email; I just wanted to make a private
> > comment.  Neither Dodge nor Google compensated me for my opinion
> > either.
> 
> Ah.  An issue begins to take form in the fog.
> 
> Any ISP whatsoever uses computers to transport your e-mail.
> 
> If that ISP should elect to scan what you write and sell the
> resulting information, they're essentially free to do so.

Except that ISPs are governed by the "Common Carrier" laws - the same
laws that protect them from liable lawsuits.  There is *some* privacy
guarantee there, but not much. And most of what is there has been
significantly diluted by the "anti-terrorism acts" (at least with
regards to the government).

The best protections are competition and isolation. Competition when
some ISPs have better policies than others (and their market cares about
privacy - right now it cares more about price). Isolation when you keep
everything to yourself or use encryption for everything.

Don't forget the bottom line: If you want to get a copy of someone's
data stream, phone calls, or correspondence, all you have to do is climb
a utility pole or collect their trash.

Privacy through competition is transient and dependent upon "market
moods". Privacy through isolation requires self-diligence - of the same
sort that protects democracy.

--Bruce
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