Written by: Beck

Privacy experts began making noise about Google's new free email service Gmail virtually the same day it came out. Their fears are various, the primary complaint being that Google reads your mail--both incoming and outgoing. The email scan--intended to allow custom tailoring of targeted ads--occurs via purely automated processes; no human ever sees its content apart from the intended recipient. Still, people are unhappy. Europeans have already said that Google violates their own privacy laws. Now, California has become the first state in the US to propose legislation restricting Google's email reading. Feel free to take a moment to reflect upon the amusing notion that CA should be the state to object to a violation of personal privacy. Then take another moment to chuckle about how the one time they try to get things right, they get them painfully wrong.

The bill by Democratic state Sen. Liz Figueroa would require Gmail to work only in real-time and would bar the service from producing records.

The bill also would bar Gmail form collecting personal information from e-mails and giving any information to third parties.

The bill passed the CA Senate by a 24-8 vote. Are there really only 32 members to the California Senate? I'm just curious here.

At any rate, my opinion on the whole matter (note that my opinion is devoid of any actual legal expertise, and rather is derived from basic principles which I personally hold to be true): there is nothing wrong with what Google & Gmail are doing here. Much as I can publish to INCITE any emails sent to me by readers without their permission, I am free to allow any 3rd parties I choose to read incoming email without the consent of the sender. If the sender has a problem with that, they shouldn't be sending me email in the first place. If the sender doesn't know me well enough to judge whether or not I'd allow others to read it (assume here that most people don't realize that Gmail reads incoming mail, and assume that to so educate the entire population of the email using world would be unrealistic) shouldn't be sending email to strangers in the first place unless they're willing to bear the burden of the risk that I might distribute this email.

I welcome any opinions to the contrary, as I haven't had a good argument in far too long.