Google Leaves Us No Chance To Hide Behind Our Email Addresses

Svetlana Gladkova,

on February 10, 2009,

I have already complained once that Google seems to be totally determined to do everything the internet giant can for us not to have to think about our emails a lot: Gmail reminds us we should attach the file we have forgotten to attach and it can even encourage you not to send that email to your ex on Friday night that you certainly will regret sending in the future. But it now looks that Gmail is totally determined to prevent us from keeping our privacy as the application now makes it easier than ever to inform the entire world of the place we send emails from.

The feature introduced in Labs today makes it possible to add your location to your signature so that every time you send an email you signature will show the place where you sent this email from in addition to what you normally have there. The location is determined based on your public IP and to make it more precise you can also use Google Gears with support of location module (in this manner it will use wi-fi access point signals to understand exactly where you are).

I know that I may sound paranoid but I strongly dislike this new feature as email happens to be the communications medium that makes it easier to hide behind it without telling where you are or what you do. It has always been like this and I think there’s nothing particularly wrong with letting it stay like this in the future as well.

Of course you certainly don’t have to use this feature and since it is in Labs you should be pretty determined to share your location with anyone you send emails to in order to activate it. But experience shows that the ideas that are born at Google first will eventually turn into wildly popular and used applications that many people will rely on for whatever purposes they may and this will make it much more difficult to hide behind your email address in the future.

Have you ever lied about your location by email? I can easily admit that I have. One example I can remember is when I worked in an office of a large company and it was pretty difficult to have a decent vacation without being disturbed every half an hour or so by colleagues endlessly calling me on the phone with questions.

My solution was simple: when I had a two-weeks vacation and only left the city for one week to spend the second week quitely at home I told everyone I would be out of the country for two whole weeks and they can only reach me by email. So every day I checked my inbox and sent them the information needed - all the way pretending I was thousands of miles away. And what if they could know I was not? My second peaceful week at home would have been totally destroyed, that’s for sure.

Of course you can remind me that I don’t have to activate the feature and keep my location data to myself. And another argument may be that people who are tech-savvy enough will be able to find my IP from my email data and locate me on the world map based on that IP address. But these arguments won’t stop me from thinking that once something like this is introduced by Google, it will eventually find its way into widely used applications.

For example, I can already imagine this feature will be soon implemented in various employee surveillance applications to make sure the employees actually have their flights delayed and wait in the airport instead of spending an extra hour of sleep after a tiresome business trip at home. Basically once something becomes a common idea it will be used - and I really doubt I will want it to be used without me knowing.

And the opportunities are endless here. How about an Outlook toolbar that will tell the recepient the locations of people he receives emails from based on their IP addresses? Or maybe a Firefox plugin that will do the same for free email services? I can certainly see it implemented in the near future now that Google suggests it and you can call me paranoid all you want but I really don’t want to make accessing my personal information easier than it currently is for the people. After all, if you need to know where I am and I don’t mind you getting to know it, I will be sure to tell you. Otherwise I’d better hide behind my email, please.

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19 Comments (Subscribe to rss)

Frank - February 11, 2009 at 01:58 am PDT

I respectfully think your concerns are misdirected.

Basically what you’ve described here are:
- Potentially rude or thoughtless colleagues who you feel a need to lie to
- A person (you, in this case) who is unwilling to firmly tell colleagues, “I am on vacation. This means I will not answer calls or return e-mails.”
- Crappy employers who distrust their employees and don’t care about their well-being.

And you’re blaming a TOOL? It’s the same as when people complain that the U.S. government is bound to irresponsibly and perhaps illegally demand their private info from search engines, and who do they get mad at? The search engines, not the actual wrongdoer (the gov’t). Do you similarly blame telephones because employers can call you at home to verify that you’re home sick?

Take responsibility. And apportion responsibility where it belongs:

- EMPLOYEES need to get a backbone and set boundaries. We are all adults for crying out loud.
- EMPLOYERS need to respect their employees (and people should prioritize working for respectful employers)
- PEOPLE need the right and ability to share info as they choose, without being constrained because the tool that offers the sharing could be misused by others.
Lord Matt - February 11, 2009 at 03:23 am PDT

I think this is where the transparent honesty ethic kicks in. While I agree that I should be able to mask my location at will for the large part if I am happy for most anything to be public knowledge then there is clearly nothing I am trying to hide and so can be trusted… that’s the theory anyway. It’s not so simple in practice but a new culture is emerging that feels that the right to privacy is a good thing but the need to use that right is quite another.
Vladimir - February 11, 2009 at 04:01 am PDT

Svetlana, this post tells more about the culture of your workplace than about Google.

“I pretended in emails to be somewhere else so my colleagues wouldn’t ruin my vacation with constant phonecalls.”

“…EMPLOYEE SURVEILLANCE applications to make check that employees really had their flights delayed as opposed to sleeping late after a tiresome business trip…”

On the other hand, all Google did was make it easier to broadcast information if you want. For what it’s worth, it also lets you edit the location signature, so you can lie to your colleagues even if you use this feature.
Leo - February 11, 2009 at 06:09 am PDT

Google doesn’t force you to use this stuff, does it?
So what’s the problem?

Totally agree with Vladimir.
Svetlana Gladkova - February 11, 2009 at 09:54 am PDT

Frank, I have actually told right in the post that I may be considered totally paranoid and this comment is exactly the type of reaction I expected The problem as I see it is that what Google suggests as an idea has all chances to quickly grow into a common practice. After all, it is possible to track the sender of your emails down with existing email clients and I really don’t think it should be made easier than it already is and Google is too powerful of a company for anyone to be able to avoid this practice in the future. And I really would not want to be considered rude for my unwillingness to share my location in every email I send when everyone learns it is now the popular trend. Thank you for the great comment!
Svetlana Gladkova - February 11, 2009 at 09:58 am PDT

Lord Matt, thank you for the comment, this really sounds like a difficult ethical question. Honestly, I am the last person who should be concerned about the problem at all as living in Novosibirsk, Russia I only have tiny chances of having anyone who tracks my online life realize I am here and want to appear in my real life. But this trend to total openness is something that I am uncomfortable about - even all these miles away from the Silicon Valley.
Svetlana Gladkova - February 11, 2009 at 10:02 am PDT

Vladimir, I am a freelancer actually so it will hardly tell you anything about my own workplace as it is pretty comfortable on my own sofa without any boss to interfere or monitor my activities - I just mentioned an example from the past and used some general knowledge of the trends in the employee surveillance market.

I have explained in the post why I feel uncomfortable: it’s not this particular feature, it’s how it will influence many developers around the world to join in the trend and offer further solutions that will eventually become an industry standard and we will have no control over them. It’s not just the tool, it’s more about Google and its trend-setting power.
Svetlana Gladkova - February 11, 2009 at 10:03 am PDT

Leo, would you mind me referring to the comment I left to Vladimir since you totally agree?
Alexey - February 11, 2009 at 11:19 am PDT

Svetlana,
I do agree with you that at some point of time attaching your location info may become mainstream, and then any time you would prefer not to share your location it will be considered rude by the recipient, therefore causing difficulties in many situations when you really need to stay in privacy. So I personally would not like it to become mainstream.

On the other hand, will it be like this or not - depends on us as the users of the communication services. So if we vote to use it - therefore we must accept the responsibility and adapt our habits for the future. So is shift to transparency good or bad - really difficult to say. It’s a cultural stuff.
dianette - February 11, 2009 at 03:29 pm PDT

Its mostly to stop spam, at the end of the day you can always use another email..
Svetlana Gladkova - February 11, 2009 at 10:55 pm PDT

Alexey, thank you for the comment and for understanding my concerns. Of course it will mostly depend on the users’ reaction if some idea goes mainstream or not but there are companies - Google or Apple are both good examples - that have the power to turn almost any idea into a mainstream trend because people will use everything labeled with “by Google” without even thinking of it critically as they have grown to trust Google. I rarely support various conspiracy theories myself but sometimes Google just scares me and this is exactly the case like this.
Svetlana Gladkova - February 11, 2009 at 10:56 pm PDT

dianette, of course I can always use another email, no doubts about that but how is it supposed to stop spam? I’m sorry but I don’t see any ways it could.
David Hughes - February 12, 2009 at 10:07 am PDT

I would be much more concerned about Google knowing too much than anyone person.

Think of what Google does.
If you use Gmail they read your emails for keywords - so they know what you are emailing about.
If you stay logged on to Gmail then Google is able to track what searches you conduct - so they know know what you search for.
If you use Google Desktop (which reads all your files for indexing) - they know exactly whats on your PC.
If you use latitude then they know where you are even when you are not on a PC.

It is a scary thought to think that this is too much information for anyone entity to have - and be able to use. Remember, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you.
Svetlana Gladkova - February 12, 2009 at 09:27 pm PDT

David, thank you for the comment and these are all the usual concerns about Google. I have a feeling that I’ve read this pretty often already so many people seem to realize they entrust Google with too much personal information without even thinking about how this information may be used. But I am accused of being paranoid frequently enough not to want to repeat all these arguments again and again though I already have a feeling Google is a real “Big Brother” in this connected world.
David Hughes - February 13, 2009 at 06:46 am PDT

George Orwell would be proud.
Svetlana Gladkova - February 13, 2009 at 08:12 am PDT

David, he should have been But I guess even the 1984 author could not even imagine the way we are monitored in 2008 by just one company.
Sasha Kovaliov - February 17, 2009 at 03:02 am PDT

What did you expect?

Till it’s your choice what parts of your personal bubble you wish to broadcast - it’s absolutely fine with me. People should have a choice.

However, in future, your geo-location might be the same as wearing your underwear and no one will complain about it. People need time to accept and psychologically get into the idea.
Svetlana Gladkova - February 17, 2009 at 05:13 am PDT

Sasha, the problem is that some people may be unhappy about wearing underwear and society should probably let them go without it. But unfortunately the society is too greedy and will hardly let people do what they want if it is against some common rules (remember assimilation of Indians, for example?).

And I think I will try to object for people to realize that there are other ways of living without having to accepting the idea of broadcasting your location to everyone
Sasha Kovaliov - February 17, 2009 at 05:21 am PDT

Yep, they call it “for the greater good”, however some times it turns to be for the greater evil.

We’ll see in several years how it all turns out.