Answers From Hoogle re:-- Re: A question about Google and Google voice

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

[It is worth commenting that IF Google in fact does not store calls,  
or monitor and obeys the "law" -- several Telecom companies are  
claimed not to do so, then I have to ask just why they are providing  
Voice services? I assume that they and others intend someday to "scan"  
calls looking for information that can be used for advertising/product  
directing services. If I am wrong, then will someone outline the  
economics for me. djf ]


Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: April 14, 2009 8:56:52 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Answers -- Re: [IP] A question about Google and Google voice


Dave,

Last Sunday you asked for information about Google's recording
policies for their Google Voice (GV) service.  I have now obtained
information on this issue from official sources within Google.

My executive summary: Google Voice only records in those situations
that I would have expected and considered to be appropriate, and the
associated policies seem completely reasonable.

Details based on the info I received:

GV records voicemail messages for delivery to recipients, and for
auto-transcription (i.e., speech-to-text) if the GV user has enabled
that option.

GV offers users the ability to record incoming calls when they answer
the phone or during the course of a call.  In either case, the calling
party will be informed that the call is being recorded.  The GV user
will then be able to access or download that recording.  These
recordings are not transcribed.  Note that the recording option is
only for *incoming* calls, not outgoing.  I would add that just as
with typical business call centers that we all deal with, continuing
with a call after being notified that it is being recorded is
considered to be giving assent to the recording process.

As you would expect, GV records personalized voicemail greetings
("Leave me a message at the tone ...") and your recorded name for an
outgoing greeting if you wish.

First time callers into GV may be asked to state their name, which
will be recorded, delivered to the called party, and saved for
association with future calls from that calling party (interesting
side note - I'm told that if the calling party's number is already
associated with a Gmail/GV address book entry, text-to-speech will be
used to announce the name rather than prompting).  Of course, some of
these features are dependent on Caller ID being available for the
calling party.

That's the whole ball of wax.  Nothing out of the ordinary, illegal,
or fattening that I can see.

I'm a bit perturbed that there'd be a variety of speculation on the IP
list that Google might handle calls in a manner that was not fully
legal.  That strikes me as a quite unrealistic concern to say the
least.  Google has shown great care with their handling of speech
data.

In their GOOG-411 service, for example, the very first words you hear
when you call are: "Calls recorded, for more info press star."  If you
inspect the associated privacy policy, it's made explicitly clear that
only the "man-machine -- speech recognition" portion of the call is
recorded, and that recording stops as soon as you are connected to a
third party.  They even note the difference between calling party
number data provided by phone companies vs. the situations when that
data is stored by Google.  Again, it's all completely reasonable.

I trust that this addresses your concerns.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
  - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
  - Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
  for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: LW1

 - - -

On 04/12 14:40, David Farber wrote:
> I have heard reasonable support for  belief that one of the reasons
> that Google has implemented Google voice is a belief that voice  
> control
> will be an important input path in the future. What better way to  
> gather
> a sampling of a wide variety of voices and potentially a very large
> experimental test data set   for voice recognition than to provide a
> service such as Google voice.
>
> If, and I have no direct evidence to support or deny this, they are
> recording and saving the conversations from Google voice this raises a
> critical question about privacy and maybe a legal question  or two.
>
> So I am asking readers to keep their ears open for any information  
> that
> would support or deny this concern.
>
> Dave




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