Internet EULA

I suppose the dominant question is really whether people HAVE a right to privacy on the Internet. Do they?

Every search engine is a company’s application. It is not your right to use Google or Yahoo. It is your consent to use the software designed by said company in the manner in which it was designed. People should not be surprised to find out that searches are saved and recorded. It would help the company’s R&D to develop a better product, to draw more users who will earn them more revenue. It’s ultimately about dollars. It’s not about providing you a free lunch.

Should you have an expectation that your e-mail is not archived? Unless your service agreement indicates privacy, I would never expect it. There are so many web interfaces involved, that messages are cached in browsers and proxies. Google never seems to delete e-mail unless you explicitly do it through the webpage. Also remember all the web traffic machines in the middle – they monitor the content flying across the ether to determine what sorts of traffic is on the ’net.

What can you really do about it? Encryption. Or just send giant e-mails back and forth to eat up that disk quota. Anonymizing services. Or engage in identify theft and perform all your actions as somebody else.