NationStates Jolt Archive

California votes for Google mail safeguards
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Published Friday 28th May 2004 03:17 GMT

The Californian state Senate has voted to introduce safeguards on email services that, like Google's Gmail, scan incoming and outgoing email for specific terms in order to display advertisements. Google views its new email service as an extension of its advertising business.

Despite intensive lobbying, and the full weight of right-wing think tanks and Internet marketing hypesters, keen to exploit the commercial potential of personal data troves, the Senate voted 24-8 to prevent the misuse of the data.

Few will object to the terms in Sen. Liz Figueroa's bill, which explicitly allows instant messaging and email providers to scan the text of messages for advertising and to remove spam and malicious code. However, data-hoarders won't be able to transfer it to third-parties or allow their staff to examine emails without consent. Most importantly, the service provider is forbidden from retaining "personally identifiable information or user characteristics obtained, derived, or inferred" from the scanning process.

Privacy campaigners have responded to the defense of "don't like it - don't' use it" by pointing to the pervasive nature of the service. Because content scanning is applied to incoming as well as outgoing emails, Internet users have the choice of being scanned or ignoring friends. "We're not going to have any choice but to send mail to people at Gmail just to function in the e-mail world," says campaigner Daniel Brandt.

"Quite simply, there is no hue and cry among e-mailers to have ads put into their e-mails, just as there is little or no interest among phone users to hear, at the beginning of a call, 'This conversation is brought to you by?'" the Sen. Figueroa had written, introducing the legislation. "In addition, there is a general abhorrence for the idea that the privacy and confidentiality we expect in virtually every other communicative medium is something that is, or should be, optional."

The wording may yet be amended. The bill now moves to the State Assembly, where the Democrats have a majority. ®

Google back in court over Adwords
By John Oates
Published Monday 26th April 2004 10:49 GMT

French insurance giant AXA is taking Google to court over allegations that the search engine sold on AXA trademarks as search terms.

The case centres on use of "Adwords" - search terms which trigger paid-for results. AXA claims that Google users searching for "AXA" or "direct assurance" were shown ads from rival insurers alongside search results.
Click Here

An initial hearing will be held in Paris on 10 May. Both companies confirmed the case was live but refused to make further comment to AP.

Google is already in dispute in the US with American Blind and Wallpaper Factory which is laying claim to trademark terms as well what Google says are generic terms such as "american blinds" or "american wallpaper discount". The decorator sent a list of more than 30 search terms it laid claim to. Google claims such terms are generic and descriptive and therefore cannot be copyrighted. The list includes "american wall covering", "american wallpaper discount", "decorate today" and "decorate today discount".

Google agreed in September 2002 to remove trademarked terms which had been bought by rival wallpaper sellers. After continued complaints from American Blind, Google counter-sued in California in November 2003 seeking relief, the costs of its action and a jury trial to determine the legality of keyword-triggered advertising.

Google is keen to gain a definitive ruling to protect its lucrative paid search advertising business. A negative ruling will also call into question the search advertising revenues of the likes of Yahoo!, MSN and AOL. Paid search accounted for 35 per cent of US online ad revenues in 2003, up from 15 per cent in 2002. This ad category drove the first annual rise in online ad revenues since 2000, according to a PwC report published last week.

Google found itself in court in France in October 2003 for selling the keywords "bourse des vols" (flight market) to a travel firm. The phrase was a registered trademark of another firm and Google was fined €70,000 for copyright infringement.

Playboy pursued Netscape on similar trademark grounds. The case took five years to reach the federal appeal court where it was settled in January this year. Terms were not made public.

Google is widely expected to file its intention to IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week. ®

Gmail is unsafe and evil! All hail YAHOO!

Germans garotte Google Gmail over privacy
By Jan Libbenga
Published Thursday 8th April 2004 11:36 GMT

Google may have to rethink its new free email service Gmail, announced a week ago. The company is offering a whopping 1Gb of free storage, but scans the content of incoming email and seeds it with targeted ads.

This is forbidden, under German privacy laws, Andreas Hermann of the German Federal Data Protection Commission told a Hanover newspaper yesterday. In Germany, email, fax and phone conversations are considered to be confidential. Snooping on email is permitted only when substantial criminal activity is suspected.
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Google stresses it will assign computers and not people to scan the content of emails, but this may still be a violation in Europe, where privacy protection laws are much stricter than in the US, where Google is based.

On Monday, citizens' group Privacy International filed a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner, and in the US 28 privacy and civil liberties groups yesterday sent an open letter, urging Google to reconsider its plans. The group claims the Gmail system sets "potentially dangerous precedents and establishes reduced expectations of privacy in email communications".

Meanwhile, Spymac Network announced a 1Gb email capacity increase for all its free member mail accounts with no strings attached. But maybe that's because their hosting servers are located in Dusseldorf, Germany. ®

Google's Gmail hits trademark problem
By John Oates
Published Wednesday 7th April 2004 09:48 GMT

Google's path to world domination took a turn for the worse yesterday with news that a small British company has already got the trademark for Gmail and has been using it in 80 countries.

The Market Age, which supplies online financial analysis tools, claims its subsidiary ProNet Analytics has been using Gmail as the brand for its email service since the middle of 2002 and is active in 80 countries, according to the Financial Times.
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The company has contacted the US Patent Office to register its interest in the trademark.

Market Age shares, traded on AIM, doubled on the news. Lawyers across the world rubbed their hands in glee.

A search on Google (didn't they do this?) shows another Gmail, which claims to have been operating since 1999 out of California from www.usegmail.com. There is at least one other email service called Gmail from a company called Javeo which you can find at www.gmail.net

And again, thank you!

And for all the "ooh, gmail is spooky and evil" folks out there, please take the time to read this article entitled 'The Fuss About Gmail and Privacy: Nine Reasons Why It's Bogus' by Tim O'Reilly:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4707


What website are you getting this from? Just give us a link. Let us read it for ourselves.

Gmail is unsafe and evil! All hail YAHOO!

Hey! If it's evil, I got it! ;)

Gmail is unsafe and evil! All hail YAHOO!
Yahoo sucks, especially after it ate up geocities and other sites. It killed my friend's domain, which hosted my subdomain... :mad:

What website are you getting this from? Just give us a link. Let us read it for ourselves.

I'm confused. I did give a link. Keep in mind that I'm on your side (as a grateful recipient of your generosity)!

The link I posted explains why the concerns over Gmail and privacy are overblown.

I, for one, fully expect to love my Gmail!

I think google is cool. Aslong as they don't archive the results of their scans, my privacy is assured - and we've always had to put up with ads, atleast now it'll be stuff I actually want.

Hey! If it's evil, I got it! ;)

I'm evil and you don't have me.
:D

Yahoo when I have to, Excite when I want to.

jim_kns@excite.com

I'm evil and you don't have me.
:D


Ah, very good point! :D

Yahoo when I have to, Excite when I want to.

jim_kns@excite.com


I have many e-mail addresses myself, most of which have "OneBadAsp" in them. ;)

Yahoo sucks, especially after it ate up geocities and other sites. It killed my friend's domain, which hosted my subdomain... :mad:

Yeah, Yahoo messed up Geocities, and Webring, and who knows what else it has gobbled up.

But I like Gmail :(

I'm confused. I did give a link. Keep in mind that I'm on your side (as a grateful recipient of your generosity)!

The link I posted explains why the concerns over Gmail and privacy are overblown.

I, for one, fully expect to love my Gmail!


I was talking about EastWhittier. I quoted you to show the address of the guy supporting Gmail.

Gmail is still good to me.

Why don't they crack down on real things...like skateboarding punks and jaywalkers...you know, the things that actually are important to crack down on.

Oh, by the way, anyone here want a GMail invite?