By seemingly admitting that Gmail users should have "no legitimate expectation of privacy," Google's legal team has created a bit of a PR headache, with terrible timing to boot.
The juicy quote fragment above comes from a class action lawsuit in California, which alleges that Gmail violates wiretapping laws when it scans messages for targeted advertising.
No one's paying much attention to the case itself. (Google argues that if it wasn't able to scan the contents of messages, it wouldn't be able to perform vital functions such as search.) What has attracted the attention of advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, and of sites like RT and Gizmodo, is a single quote from Google's motion to dismiss:
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 emails are processed by the recipient's [email provider] in the course of delivery. Indeed, 'a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.'
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