The Change Mariner

Google E-Mail Causes Privacy Concerns

San Jose Marcury News:

Internet giant Google caught some flak this week for its new e-mail service, Gmail, which will serve up text ads based on the content of a user's e-mail messages. The concern is that Google will somehow snoop on people's personal e-mail.

But lost in the hand-wringing is another, less-obvious concern, some privacy experts say.

The problem is with Google's promise to give users a whopping 1 gigabyte of free e-mail storage space. According to privacy advocates, this is a case of getting too much of good thing.

Google says the jumbo inboxes will keep people from having to delete e-mail messages, welcome relief for those of us who feel constrained by the puny 2 or 4 megabyte mailbox limits at other companies.

But Chris Hoofnagle, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., points out that messages stored on computers longer than 180 days have less privacy protection under federal law.

Federal privacy laws were designed to keep people from snooping on real-time electronic communications and conversations. But after six months, the law assumes people have stopped communicating, and e-mails are considered stored.

"All they need is a subpoena. The government doesn't even need to show cause'' if it wants to look at your stored e-mails, Hoofnagle says.

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