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.
See story in Wired News : Gmail Still Sparking Debates
Google Defends Scanning E-mail for Ad Links
A Google Inc. executive on Friday told a conference of privacy advocates here that the company's plan to electronically scan messages sent through its new Gmail service so it can link advertising to message content is a necessary tradeoff.
"To have free e-mail, you have to have ads," Nicole Wong, senior compliance counsel for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, told attendees at the 2004 Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy here. "Ads are a great way to support free e-mail," she said.
Privacy advocates peppered Wong with questions about whether it is right to scan e-mail that comes to Gmail subscribers from other mail systems and whether the very act of scanning e-mail compromises users' privacy.
See story in eWeek : Google Defends Scanning E-Mail for Ad Links
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.
See story in Wired News : Gmail Still Sparking Debates
Google Defends Scanning E-mail for Ad Links
A Google Inc. executive on Friday told a conference of privacy advocates here that the company's plan to electronically scan messages sent through its new Gmail service so it can link advertising to message content is a necessary tradeoff.
"To have free e-mail, you have to have ads," Nicole Wong, senior compliance counsel for Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, told attendees at the 2004 Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy here. "Ads are a great way to support free e-mail," she said.
Privacy advocates peppered Wong with questions about whether it is right to scan e-mail that comes to Gmail subscribers from other mail systems and whether the very act of scanning e-mail compromises users' privacy.
See story in eWeek : Google Defends Scanning E-Mail for Ad Links
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