[With reference to "Google's Gmail could be blocked" article on BBC News.]
It is not just that Google want to scan people's e-mail and insert targetted ads, but what other 'features' they might implement in future - especially given their current use of a very long-lived cookie that can effectively be used to monitor your browsing behaviour. Linking these two together gives a US corporation powers far in excess of those even some Governments currently *admit* to...
As to the argument about not having to use the service if you don't want to - a service like this is bound to be promoted heavily, and the downsides of it obfuscated. The penalties for 'innocence' or 'ignorance' are, in this arena, getting higher & higher - and the (non-technical) public is quite evidently not sufficiently aware of personal data security issues hence, e.g. the current level of identity fraud.
Yes it should be down to banks, companies, organisations, and governments to implement systems and offer services that do not compromise your personal information - but, get real, they are not perfect and they are not even (some of them) ethically motivated!
Posted by lankyphil at April 14, 2004 03:53 PM | TrackBack