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May 28, 2004
CA's attack on Google's Gmail
California's Senate voted 24-8 today to pass a bill restricting how Google's ad-based Gmail service can serve up ads. The politicians responsible for this atrocity have a taxpayer-funded staff to take care of their taxpayer-funded email accounts, while Google works hard to allow millions of people to get access to a free and technologically innovative email account. Well, I am going to make Senator Figueroa's attack on America a bit harder by emailing the CA senators from my Gmail account. (Assembly emails are here.) Feel free to send the letter below...or anything else that will help them appreciate the value of email.
Dear Senator __,I am writing to you to express my disappointment and distress at today's vote (SB 1822) to restrict Google's ability to keep records of customers of its Gmail service. Google is a private company that provides me with a free service in exchange for agreeing to their terms and conditions. While the taxpayers pay for your email and the staff that manages it, I depend on the innovation of the brilliant developers at Google for free and technologically superior email service.
I consider the bill to regulate how Google provides its email service an unjust, immoral, and unconstitutional infringement on my liberty and privacy. The government has no business dictating the terms of a private transaction between two parties. As long as Google is honest about the contract it makes with customers, you have no right to violate the privacy of that contract.
The right to privacy is the right to choose how I integrate my life into the rest of society. Limiting my ability to make private choices about how I interact with others is equally immoral whether those choices involve public association, online communication, or business transactions. Restricting my ability to engage in voluntary associations is an unconstitutional encroachment on my rights
If you do not respect the institution of private property, you cannot respect the right to privacy. It is private property that implements my right to disagree and protects the privacy of my mind. If you believe that Google does not adequately protect user's privacy, please start your own email service - don't take mine away.
I ask you to respect my privacy - the privacy of a mutually consensual and beneficial transaction between myself and Google.
Sincerely,
David Veksler
Posted by David Veksler at May 28, 2004 9:00 PM
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