Comments on: Court Orders Google Gmail Account Deactivated – What Happened To Our 1st Ammendment Rights?

By: mhz

mhz — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:46:31 +0000

It would be an inconvenience if you’re the Gmail user, but it sounds like it was necessary. You can’t wait around for a non-responsive user to get back to you. Once the situation is explained to him/her, if the Gmail user puts up a big fuss about it, it means he/she is stupid and selfish.

Mistakes happen, and if you get caught in the middle of a big one, you have to cooperate, even if its an inconvenience to you.

Maybe they were non-responsive because they were trying to *figure out* how to exploit the information. You just don’t know, so time is of the essence. It had to be shut down to force contact with the user, if there is still one.

By: Larry Burklow

Larry Burklow — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:58:37 +0000

Wow! What makes the bank/judge think that shutting down the account would help?

In my opinion, only a very small portion of the population would know how to exploit the information if it was received in their inbox; those that did know, would certainly have printed it out and/or forwarded to another address.

Why couldn’t the judge just order Google to locate and delete the offending email off of the persons account? If they can shut it down, they can certainly see the contents.

The bank made a mistake, and I’m sure they will pay legally for it, but the judge’s response really wasn’t logical and most likely didn’t stop anything from being disseminated; if indeed the person actually ever saw the email.

By: Terry Thompson

Terry Thompson — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:23:20 +0000

Do I like what the bank did ? Absolutely not. But,
as I understand it, the owner of the email address did not answer requests from Google or the bank.
Something had to be done to make sure those accounts were not being forwarded on, or used in a fraudulent manner. Who knows who a person is on a Google or Yahoo email address?
With the amount of identity theft going on I understand the bank’s actions. But I think the bank must answer to those 1301 victims (this includes the email owner) for their actions.

By: leftystrat

leftystrat — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:45:09 +0000

This is the inevitable procession of legal lunacy that started with the RIAA/MPAA suing everyone over digital rights.

By: Zetacon

Zetacon — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:33:07 +0000

I agree with your reasoning, but I think another side needs to be looked at here.

“On Aug. 12, the bank mistakenly sent names, addresses, social security numbers and loan information of more than 1,300 customers to a Gmail address.”

1,300 customers to 1 Gmail address. Look at it from the bank’s point of view. Would you rather have 1,300 people suing you for disclosing private information, accidental or not or have one person sue you for having their Google account closed? On top of that, Google Mail is a free service and you can easily make another account. I’m also pretty sure that a reasonable exchange could be made where Google would transfer the contacts from the old account to the new account, as well as forward any necessary e-mails to allow less interruption for the user.

“No one responded, so the bank contacted Google to ask for information about the account holder.”

Operative phrase: No one responded. I can understand that the end user may have thought it was spam and probably deleted it. However, I’m sure phone numbers are not asked for by new Gmail users, so the bank wasn’t left with much of choice.

All in all, you need to look at the numbers, though. 1,300 people suing you or 1?