July 06, 2004

Court Creates Snoopers' Heaven. A federal appeals court has ruled (PDF) that an e-mail provider did not break the law when he copied and read e-mail messages sent to customers through his server, setting a precedent for e-mail service providers to legally snoop on their customers' e-mail.
posted by homunculus 20 years ago
  • And yet, don't they also want to ban gmail, because it "reads" your messages?
  • dng: Don't bother trying to understand America. I still don't get this place, and I've lived here all of my 31 years.
  • That's really bad. I think I might fire off a very angry email to them about it. Or, on second thoughts, I could just send it to my mum... they'll probably get it anyway...
  • In the US of late, money interests come first, and people come in second second.
  • Ashcroft craps on the flag again. Go Bush junta!
  • dng: federal appeals court != california legislature (who are the ones, I believe, that tried to ban gmail). Maybe someone ought to suggest to them a bill to make this sort of snooping again illegal (at least in CA).
  • Granting e-mail providers the ability to read e-mail is equivalent to granting postal workers the right to open and read any mail while it's at a post office for sorting, but not while it's in transit between post offices or being hand-delivered to a recipient's home or business. awful comparison. Granting e-mail providers the ability to read e-mail is equivalent to granting e-mail providers to read e-mail.
  • I actually thought it was not an awful comparison -- the law being a very blunt object, the analogy to something for which there is established precedent as well as public opinion against seems a reasonable tactic, even if there are more technical things that separate mail and email storage than link them.