The Mountain View-based company has made wiretapping a common practice, it says

Aug 5, 2013 14:37 GMT  ·  By
Users should have no expectation of privacy when accessing Gmail, Google explains
   Users should have no expectation of privacy when accessing Gmail, Google explains

User privacy has quickly become a major issue for large tech companies across the world, especially due to the PRISM scandal that unveiled so many wiretapping techniques used by US intelligence agencies.

While Microsoft has clearly stated that it only provided access to user data based on legal requests, the company is now pointing to several Google documents claiming that Gmail users have “no legitimate expectation of privacy.”

Basically, Microsoft claims that wiretapping is a common practice for Google, so every user who agrees to register for an account on Gmail should know from the very beginning that his emails could be accessed at any time.

The documents are part of a lawsuit against Google in which the plaintiffs are accusing the search company of wiretapping emails without authorization.

Here are a few excerpts from Google’s statement:

“The state law wiretap claims of the Non-Gmail Plaintiffs fail for similar reasons. While the non-Gmail Plaintiffs are not bound to Google’s contractual terms, they nonetheless impliedly consent to Google’s practices by virtue of the fact that all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing.”

“Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS provider in the course of delivery.”

“Indeed, ‘a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.’”

While automated processing isn’t something new and can’t be actually considered wiretapping given the fact that such systems could be used for displaying relevant ads to specific IPs, Google’s statements could indeed make privacy advocates around the world raise an eyebrow when it comes to Gmail.

Google’s CEO Larry Page has explained back in June that his company did not collect data on user activity, explaining that all content was securely stored on its servers.

“Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users' Internet activity on such a scale is completely false,” Page explained. “We have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government--or any other government--direct access to our servers.”

Of course, the above statements aren’t quite the best way to tell users that their data is secure when accessing Gmail. Still, it’s up to you to decide.

We’ve uploaded the lawsuit documents so you can check them out all by yourself (PDF reader required):

Document 1 Document 2 Document 3