California legislator moves to block Gmail

12 Apr, 2004 at 10:49pm ET Article published in Tech

A California state senator said Monday she was drafting legislation to block Google’s free e-mail service “Gmail” because it would place advertising in personal messages after searching them for key words.

“We think it’s an absolute invasion of privacy. It’s like having a massive billboard in the middle of your home,” said Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from Fremont, Calif.

“We are asking them to rethink the whole product,” she said.

[i]Submitted by[/i] KingFish

Source: News.com

Comments

12 Apr 2004 ~ 10:55pm FormFactor Complete waste of taxpayer dollars.
12 Apr 2004 ~ 10:57pm KingFish

FormFactor wrote:

Complete waste of taxpayer dollars.

Yup, I think the marketplace should make that decision since there are plenty of alternatives to choose from. This shouldn't be in the realm of legislation, but that's simply an opinion.

KingFish
12 Apr 2004 ~ 11:25pm pseudonym GO GOVERNMENT!!! You keep doing things that are, ummmm, useful??
12 Apr 2004 ~ 11:32pm Linc Oh man, score one for hyperactive legislators that don't understand technology. Only reason I can think of to block Gmail is being on the payroll of M$ or Yahoo.
13 Apr 2004 ~ 12:21am Thrax Fantastic. An autonomous program attaching a contextual advertisement allows unscrupulous people to... Not have more control over an email service than they already do!

Heaven forbid a contextual advert be placed as a footer rather than a generic. Certainly that will allow them to search emails as any provider already may!
13 Apr 2004 ~ 1:19am Camman omg check this out, I solved this whole privacy problem without any courts or anything.

If you think it's an invasion of privacy.....don't use the service.

Now someone give me lots of money.
13 Apr 2004 ~ 1:48am Linc

Camman wrote:

If you think it's an invasion of privacy.....don't use the service.

Precisely. The good senator should give you her salary for the time she wasted on that nonsense to you. People took the Patriot Act lying down but are having a fit about a friggin' e-mail service run by innocuous software?? I think the privacy groups have just been starved for an issue lately.
13 Apr 2004 ~ 1:52am topherice What's up with all the ************ in these posts? Only visible when viewed from the read more link on the S-M home page.
13 Apr 2004 ~ 1:58am Thrax

S-M Front Page wrote:

We think i****'s an absolute invasion of privacy. I****'s like having a massive billboard in the middle of your home," said Sen. Liz ******igueroa, a Democra**** ******rom ******remon****, Calif.

"We are asking them to rethink the whole produc****," ****e said.
13 Apr 2004 ~ 2:04am Linc oh my, I think the swear filter didn't like something I added... I'll go sort that now...

//edit: fixt
13 Apr 2004 ~ 3:28am Unregistered Let the people decide for themselves.
13 Apr 2004 ~ 4:30am Enverex I highly doubt any of the information is stored, and the page is generated on the fly, so it isn't invading anyones privacy. Thats like saying something that formats the page is invading your privacy as it needs to read the output of the page before writing it back out.
13 Apr 2004 ~ 8:18am EyesOnly
13 Apr 2004 ~ 11:45am TheBaron wait ... its FREE, so we're paying to get rid of it?
13 Apr 2004 ~ 12:43pm Dexter Ya, 3 words here Madam Senator...:

free e-mail service

If people don't want the ads, they are welcome to not use the service.

Dexter...