Google is also the company that makes GMail or Google Mail here in Germany. A product that is to be considered illegal by German law, yet somehow exists over here, even with its own brand name, due to trademark issues. Then again it’s not uncommon for web companies to not really comply with German consumer and privacy laws like with Amazon. In Google Mails case its simply not allowed for any one to shift through other peoples emails, be it a human or machine, regardless of what they end up doing with that information. It’s for similar reasons why sysadmin can go to prison for installing a spam filter. Btw in Amazon case it’s because they force upon their users the out-of-country processing of their personal data (along with an extensive data trail that they claim is not personalized).
(Via Planet PHP.)
Wow! Thats interesting. I had no idea that some countries had such laws. In fact, I had no idea people cared so deeply about people machines reading their email. I personally don't care about it and have been using Gmail for a while now. Should I care? Think about it. Spam filters on your server are machines reading your mail. Why do we not have a problem with Spam filters?
The writer goes on to say:
Anyways, Google always said "Don't be evil". These days they have changed the wording to say "You can make money without doing evil". I liked the first variant better as it stated intent to not be evil, the other just states the possibility.
Its interesting how things change as a company grows!
