After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and become just another database record. This means that a subpoena instead of a warrant is all that’s needed to force Google to produce a copy. Other countries may even lack this basic protection, and Google’s databases are distributed all over the world. Since the Patriot Act was passed, it’s unclear whether this ECPA protection is worth much anymore in the U.S., or whether it even applies to email that originates from non-citizens in other countries.
I do have a GMail account, but I haven’t really used it. This article makes me ask myself, in what cases would I actually want to use GMail?
Thanks, Mike.
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Well, information about the higher-traffic lists I subscribe to is public anyway, so I’m enjoying having a separate account for the many list messages I get. Most of them are academic, so again, not a high risk. Using it for personal e-mail… that’s shakier, and I probably won’t. Thanks for the link, via Jill, Dennis.
In an article I wrote last year, noting Google’s acquisition of Blogger, I asked, “Will GoogleBlogs somehow cross the line?” GMail goes a little further. What next?
I’m definitely not getting a Gmail account. I like google as a search engine but I don’t want that much data about me centralised – and especially not in a country where privacy legislation is worse than in my home country.