Gmail messages 'read by human third parties'

[Puppy]

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44699263

Google has confirmed that private emails sent and received by Gmail users can sometimes be read by third-party app developers, not just machines.

[TPFanatic]

Typical Android.

[ajkula66]

Typical Android.

Typical "anything-Google-related", really...which is why I *never* use my work phone for anything non-work-related...

[Puppy]

No Google products/services in my home

[ajkula66]

No Google products/services in my home

Same here BUT I don't have that choice in my workplace.

[Puppy]

Same here BUT I don't have that choice in my workplace.

I wouldn't care. If the company is stupid enough to use platform driven by ads (= user's private data) revenue only, it is their problem.

[TonyJZX]

This should be coupled by the fact you arent doing any personal stuff on work email and whatever you do is above board ie. not like say the loser in the US 2016 election.

I'm perhaps less worried about gmail or hotmail personal as these are largely spam catcher email.

[RealBlackStuff]

I use Gmail only for receiving statistics about my website counters.
I signed up with them in May 2009, and have since received only about 630 emails (but probably 150,000 or more spam).

Please don't say: "Google it".
Google doesn't tell you who is better, only who paid the most to be listed first.

[Cigarguy]

Like the rest of you, I've come to NOT expect any privacy with anything Google. Unfortunately the alternative is not that much better and is getting worse. The drive to shove "ads" in my face can and is very annoying. More so the older I get.

Some of us remember the 1984 novel by George Orwell, IMO, with Google home some are paying for and inviting into their home exactly this scenario. In some ways I miss the days of pagers vs the constant obsessive addiction of checking a rectangular screen all day.

[TonyJZX]

Its actually amazing to me that people will pay money to have google home amazon alexa and whatever the hell apple sells as some kind of microphone and direct portal to the big evil corporations in their home!

At this point I would rather have Lenovo produce their own "Lenovo Home" microphone that sends all your voice back to Beijing because at least their China police dont have any jurisidicton here and nor do they share information with Interpol or the various "five eyes" in the west.

That's what its come down to - I trust China more than the Western intelligence aparatus!

[dr_st]

Google doesn't tell you who is better, only who paid the most to be listed first.

That's not true. Google's indexing algorithms generally do work better than other search engines' algorithms.

An interesting observation: Google Corp. produced from scratch only two awesome products: Google Search and GMail. The rest was bought off. But their products offer tangible benefits to users and are free, so they must be paid for somehow.

[Puppy]

Unfortunately the alternative is not that much better and is getting worse.

I don't think so, you can easily divide them into two distinctive groups based on what brings the majority of their revenue. The first group, I don't trust at all, makes 99% of the money by selling targeted ads (Google, Facebook, Twitter and so on) so they have to monitor user activities, it is their primary job. The second group by selling products and services (Microsoft, Apple, HP, Dell, Oracle and so on). Oh yes, the second group also run the ads business but it is marginal only.

Because I simply have to trust someone, I'd always trust Microsoft more than Google. Google also represents the most terrible security updates policy ever, basically majority of their OS devices will never receive a single security update or the update is delivered too late (delay in months) and Google doesn't care at all. Both Microsoft and Apple are completely different level when it comes to such support because they belong to the second group.

[dr_st]

Because I simply have to trust someone, I'd always trust Microsoft more than Google. Google also represents the most terrible security updates policy ever, basically majority of their OS devices will never receive a single security update or the update is delivered too late (delay in months) and Google doesn't care at all. Both Microsoft and Apple are completely different level when it comes to such support because they belong to the second group.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's forced update policy for Win10 Home (which you cannot control like you can in Pro/Enterprise, and even the traditional big gun like disabling Windows Update service does not work, because other services and scheduled tasks re-enable it), and the attached forced restarts that ignore your open applications / unsaved work (!) swing the pendulum so far the other way, that I would much rather stay with my unpatched phones...

[Cigarguy]

Don't have to trust anyone Puppy. Up to Win 7 I agree with you regarding MS. The change in Windows policy from Win 7 to Win 10 is what I meant by getting worse. The other viable alternative is Apple OS and Linux. For me it will be Linux but even then I don't fully trust it or someone.

Not trusting someone doesn't mean I don't use their product. I'm fully in on Gmail and Android but I'm in with my eyes open and knowing what I'm, on the most part, in for.

[Callahan]

Just found this topic today ...

This is probably no solution but just for information as to what I finally did in April. I had read about G-mail for several years and a lot of it not good. For instance, a persons emails are really never deleted, they are all stored (forever) somewhere. Google was building large 'secretive' complexes out west somewhere or now has various buildings in various locations scattered around with servers storing everything it can find.

I have read all this through the years and have no idea what is fact or fiction ... I tend to think it is probably more 'fact' than 'fiction'. My e-mails are really not important anyway, I send very little these days and do not text ... so if they are being stored somewhere for a hundred years, not much information there for me to worry about I guess.

However, in early April I decided to quit using G-mail anyway and went to Proton Mail for my future e-mails. They are the ones who have their servers deep in the Swiss mountains. I don't think they save deleted e-mails also.

I guess hackers could still get into the servers but maybe you're deleted e-mails will not be around for a hundred years or more.
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