Google Reads Your Email--I Googled It
Rick,
Rick,
This morning, I was
reading the news on google, and I came across a story about their latest
lawsuit about e-mail privacy. I'm sure the military read our e-mails, as
your new employer may ... but if you get a chance to read the article linked below,
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
I'll jot down a few
things myself ...
Cheers!
Mike
I read the article and the first thing I did was check my gmail account.
As I looked over my inbox, five things became apparent to me:
1-
I like to shop. My wife may be right in
stating that I’m a clothes junkie. In my defense, most of the items were on
sale and good quality. I suppose that will be irrelevant if I go broke saving
money. That’s another blog for another day, though.
2-
I hear from Redbox more often than I do
from my older children. It was kind of sad to realize that Redbox is one of the
few interactions I can count on every day. However, both Redbox and my kids
usually only contact me because they want my money. So there’s that.
3-
I’m consistently behind in my Bible
reading. I know this because my Bible app keeps sending me email reminders. I
don’t want to read them because I feel guilty. I also don’t want to delete them
because that seems wrong. I mean, you can’t just delete something telling you
to read God’s word. That’s got to be a sin, like skipping a Christian song on
your Ipod. I feel guilty just thinking about it. So all those gentle reminders
sit in my inbox unread.
4-
I send myself a lot of emails. I send them
thinking I will work on them at home. Never happens so they just clog up my
inbox. Although I’m sure the guy reading them gets a chuckle out of the fact
that I sometimes write myself encouraging notes.
5-
Man, have I been turned down for a lot of
jobs! I started keeping the rejection notices because I thought they would fuel
my fire. I would make everyone pay who passed on me. Boy, were they going to be
sorry. Instead, I’m usually sorry I kept them. I go back and sniffle through
them while thinking “why didn’t you want me?” Then I eat ice cream to feel
better. Then I feel bad about myself. Then I eat more food. Then I complain
that I go to the gym but can’t lose weight. It’s all very healthy.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the feedback you were looking for.
When I was in the military, every time I logged on to my computer I had to
consent to being monitored. It was just part of the routine. I would always
think, “Yes, Big Brother, I understand that you have the right to monitor my
email and see that I’m consistently poor at reading them and even worse at
answering them in a timely manner.” I mean, if they were going to monitor them,
why didn’t they ever help a brother out? I can think of several occasions when
I hit the send button and it should have stopped me and asked “Really? Are you
sure you want to send that? In that tone? To that person? Do you really want to
never get promoted again?” But, seriously, I always understood why they
monitored email. It played a role in maintaining good order and discipline, as
well as protecting sensitive information.
Now I have transitioned to a civilian job and my email is still
monitored. I’m not as sure why they need to monitor it. Maybe at some point
I’ll know a trade secret or something. At the rate I accumulate knowledge, I
think they have a good decade or so before they need to worry about it.
Whatever. At least they told me that they held the right to check it. I can
deal with that.
My problem with the Google policy is twofold. First, no one told me.
Maybe I want to keep my private email conversations with myself private. I
think it’s fair to seek privacy without having something to hide. Secondly, the
Google policy is only there as a way to increase revenue. I’m a diehard
capitalist. I have no problem with making money however you legally can. This
just doesn’t seem legal to me. It looks like they will start putting it in the
terms of use. I imagine it going something like this: “Gmail is not actually
free. You must agree to allow us to read your boring, poorly written emails so
we can figure what you like and then force unwanted advertisements on you every
time you try to see if Redbox has written you today.”
The most salient point of the entire article is this quote that I
admittedly took out of context: “a person has no legitimate expectation of
privacy.” To me, that sums up life in today’s society. I wasn’t even a little
shocked to learn my emails were being read. I would have been more surprised to
learn that they weren’t. Bottom line- You should live your life like it’s being
recorded, because it most likely is.
Rick,
I finally sat down to
write out a few thoughts after getting the kids from school.
The notion that tech firms take advantage of the
information we provide is not surprising, but Google's admission that they
parse e-mails sent from or to my gmail account to learn more about me is
disturbing.
Sure, I reply when my folks e-mail questions
about “bursitis” or “pine beetles”, but that shouldn't shape my next web
search. Likewise, unsolicited advice I receive from friends, family,
co-workers, or business acquaintances is hardly a welcome basis for future
advertisements. It's like if my iPhone picked up snippets of “We Are The
Champions” while I was at the last hockey game, and took the liberty of
updating my Pandora account to include more Freddy Mercury alongside the
traditional bluegrass I had planned to enjoy … or if my wife saw me laughing at
Dwight Schrute and decided to make beets for dinner. Who makes decisions like
that?
Google's assertion that their users have “no
legitimate expectation of privacy” is beyond erroneous. The central issue is an
ethical one – while my search terms are passed as free text, my e-mails should
be considered for the eyes of those I include in the address list. The
executives are accustomed to selling information to advertisers, and so are
inclined to think all information is freely accessible, but the common user is
right to assume the text of their messages are only accessed by those
specifically addressed (or those surreptitiously snooping around). Sure, I
might know what my teenaged daughter wrote in her journal, but that isn't
because I'm a good person – it just means I'm not to be trusted.
I suppose I have several concerns about Google:
- How long before a rogue employee decides to
stalk users for sport, and how could that impact me and my family?
- How much data is stored, and who else gets to
see it? What are the odds all of their employees are to be trusted?
- Are their conclusions obtainable by warrant,
or just the raw data?
Most perplexing to me: What is happening in the
world that I will never come across on my own computer? I value innovation, and
I believe the only way to be innovative is to know multiple fields of study. I
like to look at the world from different perspectives, and find the overlap.
When Google attempts to “clarify” my experience, what they mean is “isolate”
me. Suddenly, I am defined by my past – encumbered by their perspective of my
interests. In fact, I see their business model as cultivating a deliberate
prejudice. Google is profiling each of us, and restricting the information we
see by prioritizing what they show us.
On the other hand, when YouTube does it, I get a
lot of Muppet videos in my feed. I may blame it on my kids, but I really do
like when Rowlf sings.
At the very least, Google should offer a “clear
vision” mode, where a different search algorithm ignores your cookies and
offers a new way to view the internet. Maybe new search functions like
“persona:eco”, “persona:fringe”, “persona:vegetarian”, :hipster, :retiree, or
:random. These modes of viewing the web could broaden horizons, and potentially
increase the way Google helps advertisers define their demographic. There is a
way to do it without digging through e-mails.
Regardless, Google has to make money, and we are
not exactly limiting the information we give them. There are other search
engines, and we should try them from time to time. In fact, I just Googled
“best search engine”, and Google isn't even on the first page – though there is
a featured ad for Rogaine – that's odd.
Mike
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