Re: more news from Google

[Dave Israel <davei () otd com>]

Joe Abley wrote:
> On 2010-01-13, at 11:31, Anthony Uk wrote:
>
>   
> > The ability to automatically discern users' political positions from their inbox is not one that any email provider 
> > reasonably needs.
> >     
>
> It's arguably something that gmail users consent to when they give Google rights to index and process their mail, 
> though.
>
>   

Or... Maybe account X is attacked, and it is registered to somebody
named Liu Xiaobo, and Liu Xiaobo turns out to be a prominent human
rights activist.   After some investigation, it turns out accounts
belonging to people whose names match known human rights activists were
attacked and those that don't, weren't.  Sure, assuming Google is being
Sinister Santa Claus (brings gifts ostensibly from the goodness of their
hearts, but mysteriously knows what you want, knows when you've been
sleeping, knows when you're awake, etc) through data mining makes a good
story, but it isn't the obvious conclusion.