Gmail Dangers [Was [LINK] AU Domain reseller/hosts]

[Roger Clarke]

At 13:29 +1000 13/9/06, Jim Birch wrote:
>  ... I could then forward into another email account, eg gmail.

Some of us would say 'don't use gmail'.  See, for example:
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/Gurgle0512.html#PrivC
"Importantly, the threats extend beyond Gmail subscribers to the 
individuals who send message to Gmail subscribers. The text of their 
emails is examined, it is retained long-term, it is subject to 
largely uncontrolled use and disclosure, and the doctrine of privity 
of contract and the manifold weaknesses and patchiness of privacy 
laws together suggest that the correspondents simply have no rights 
at all in relation to the content of those emails. The result has 
been that some people decline to correspond with other people via 
Gmail addresses. Perhaps more should do so."

I don't converse with people via gmail accounts.  (I email back, sans 
signature block, and omitting Subject and original text, merely 
saying 'if you want to talk to me, it needs to be from a real 
account').

The reason I do this is to avoid a nicely meta-tagged database of my 
private utterances ending up in the hands of Google Inc.

That gets undermined of course, if people who I'm conversing with 
flush the emails from their visible address to a gmail account ....

The next challenge is that mailing list managers need to start 
seriously considering banning subscription from gmail accounts.

By subscribing a dummy account to every e-list worth monitoring, 
Google could harvest a vast mound of traffic into their database, 
including those that aren't (intentionally) archived.

But to the extent that every list has at least one subscriber who 
uses a Gmail account, users are doing it for them.

-- 
Roger Clarke                  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW