Gmail under attack in California
Well, I guess this is as good a time as any for my Gmail post. They offered beta accounts to Blogger members, so I got one, and am currently having my regular mail forwarded to my new Gmail address. I did this fully aware of the privacy concerns surrounding the service.
To be honest, the privacy concerns seem minimal to me. My father always said that nothing should ever be sent via email that wouldn’t be written on the back of a postcard. While I don’t follow this guideline, I believe in its truth, and I know that I can’t complain if sensitive information that I have emailed is compromised. With any email service, if privacy is what you’re looking for, you should be using PGP or another encryption service.
The article above raises excellent points about the services for which we are willing to compromise our privacy in nearly identical ways, and the things that we may inadvertantly be giving up if we pass legislation like what’s been proposed in California. That said, even if we weren’t giving up services that might be useful, it’s still our job as consumers to decide on an individual basis whether or not our privacy is worth it, and this isn’t the kind of thing for which there is a universal answer that can be mandated by the government.
Anyway, if Gmail is a concern for you, but you’d like to send me email, here’s my PGP key. Actually, if Gmail is a concern for you, I suggest just getting over it. But you can send me email anyway.