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Peter Davoust <worldgnat@×××××.com> posted |
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1160322174.2818.6.camel@×××××××××.localdomain, excerpted below, on Sun, |
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08 Oct 2006 11:42:54 -0400: |
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> You bring up an issue I wanted to ask about: Why wouldn't you use gmail as |
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> your personal e-mail? I've heard people saying it's evil, and that google |
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> is fascist, but I don't really know what to believe. Personally I like the |
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> features that gmail offers, and I think it's great that it stores all my |
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> mail ever sent so I can access my old e-mails still if my hard drive gets |
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> wiped (which happens accidentally or not every month or so). Thoughts? |
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For me (as it would seem the OP), it's the whole privacy thing. Google |
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mines the data to serve ads, and associates that with your search profile |
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as well (same google-wide master cookie, if I'm not mistaken). While |
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supposedly no one ever looks at that, only machines, corporate policies |
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can and do change. As well, if the data is there, it is subject to search |
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warrant or with Bush run rampant over civil liberties, now with little or |
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no control whatsoever -- all they have to do is say it's national security |
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related to grab any existing records, pretty much, and it's getting worse, |
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not better. |
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Yes, there's the same deal to some extent with any mail, specifically |
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anything that's not encrypted, even if both ends run their own servers, |
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because it travels over the public internet and is subject to logging |
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there. However, as I mentioned, I don't like the whole web interface |
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thing that much either, and then there's the whole thing with the same |
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company holding the search profile as well. As it is, I don't do cookies |
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from Google as they are (with most of the rest of the net) set for no |
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cookies (or session-only) by default. If google has a search profile on |
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me, it's by IP only, and that changes. To get the link, they'd need to |
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talk to my ISP, and while government can do that, one would hope google |
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wouldn't be able to get that info from the ISP. |
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So it's a personal privacy thing. No big deal for me tho as I never did |
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their mail in the first place, so I just don't start. As for others, it's |
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up to them. What they choose to do is their business. |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |
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-- |
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