There are many things wrong with this order, but the most obvious ones are:
1. Both the emails could be in the spam folder of an account which the user is heavily dependent on.
2. In the future, to deactivate somebody's account just send a sensitive mail to that account.
My question is what does deactivating the e-mail account accomplish? If I received that e-mail and I intended to sell it or use it for my own malicious purposes, I would have saved the data off somewhere by now. Deactivating the e-mail account doesn't seem to accomplish anything.
It prevents the user from selling off the data if this is an infrequently checked account (i.e. the user has not had a chance to even make the decision to sell the info).
Then why didn't the court just authorize google to delete that particular attachment? It's on their servers after all. Google can also see whether the attatchment has been downloaded. There's absolutely no reason why the account should be suspened.
Maybe a 'real world' example is in order. If the bank accidentally mailed confidential information to a random person's PO Box, then sent a mail to that person's PO Box requesting that they return the package... it would be a similar scenario. The package was sent to the wrong place and the bank is obscured from knowing the identity of the real person behind that address.
This judge's ruling is akin to allowing the bank to force the Postal Service to remove that person's PO Box account and burn all the mail inside of it in an attempt to destroy the confidential information. This is wrong on so many levels it's not funny.
1) The bank has no confirmation that the confidential information has has not been already removed from the PO Box.
2) The bank is destroying all of that person's other mail and preventing future mail from reaching that person in an attempt to correct their mistake (which is only related to a single piece of mail).
If the judge wanted to allow them access to the PO Box to remove the mail, then so be it. The current ruling makes no sense. As alex_c said, someone making important decisions about a matter (technology or otherwise) CANNOT use ignorance as an excuse. Some person that's never used a computer can be as technologically ignorant as they like, but someone that holds a position of responsibility is a different issue.
Hopefully "deactivate" simply means preventing the owner of the account from logging in. It is possible to deactivate an email account while storing incoming email and preserving the contents of that person's account - just in a way inaccessible to them. That way, it could simply be temporary - especially if appealed.
It's an absolutely terrible decision, but I think (hope?) it will be more akin to them changing the lock on your PO Box and not allowing you to access its contents until the situation is cleared up. Clearly not an acceptable decision, but it's better than permanently losing everything and can be appealed by the account's holder.
Plus, if the deactivation was a destruction of the person's data, that would put the bank at huge liability I would have to think. People have important emails and I don't think any jury would side with the bank. Imagine presenting that case to a jury. "The bank screwed up and to cover their ass, they destroyed all my email - all my personal and professional communications; important documents. . ."
Just as a datapoint, my wife once received a comprehensive account history including balance, full social security and PIN. Very scary to have all that information in one document, imagine if it had been my wife's information instead of some random Korean national whose address bore no similarity to hers!
We took the document to the bank of course, they promised to "fix" her address, entirely unconcerned at the fact that they had just mailed out random personal information to a different customer. We're no longer with that bank.
Google isn't the postal service and has no contractual obligations to its email users. The judge might well think anyone who allows his livelihood to depend on a freebie that Google can withdraw any time it wants is an 'idiot'. Who could blame him?
The only other way that a person can get email on the internet is through a hosting/colo/vps service. Hosting services are notoriously quick to just turn over information at the sign of any trouble. If this user's email was hosted on a hosting service that he/she had paid for, chances are that his/her information would have been handed over to the bank as soon as the words 'lawyer' and/or 'court' were mentioned.
It's funny then that Google -- with their free service -- has shown more compassion for this user's privacy rights than a paid service would have. (Note that I realize this 'compassion' is out of need to protect a brand, yadda yadda yadda)
And in any case, since Google has no 'contractual obligations' to its email users, do you think that it would be right and proper for the judge to order Google to shut down all free gmail addresses in the hopes that it would prevent problems for this bank? Afterall, it's a free service right? All of those users are idiots, right?
I think people on this board especially understand that something as simple as an email account can directly affect our means of making a living and can have very serious consequences, therefore we understand that a blanket deactivation could be the equivalent of "to help me fix my mistake, you must lose your job."
To non-geeks loosing an email account isn't as big of a deal, so it's easy to see why a judge would not realize the significance.
I know many non-geeks who would consider losing their email account a big deal and would be upset. More than just geeks rely on their online identities to talk and work.
The problem is more general, that the current set of lawyers, policy makers and the like just aren't familiar with anything digital. Given 20 years, when the current law students/other 20-somethings, who have grown up with the Internet, iPhones and a constant connectivity to anyone you want, start getting into policy creating offices and sitting as judges, I expect to see many changes to the way issues like this are handled.
I wonder if anyone has heard anything at all from the holder of the Gmail account? I mean it could very well be that the emails just ended up in spam, but I think it more likely that the email account simply isn't used anyway.
That said it is obvious that no one wants their email account to be terminated, especially not those who use it for business, and if the court has that power to simply deactivate someone's account then something is very wrong with our judicial system.
Comments
There are many things wrong with this order, but the most obvious ones are: 1. Both the emails could be in the spam folder of an account which the user is heavily dependent on. 2. In the future, to deactivate somebody's account just send a sensitive mail to that account.
My question is what does deactivating the e-mail account accomplish? If I received that e-mail and I intended to sell it or use it for my own malicious purposes, I would have saved the data off somewhere by now. Deactivating the e-mail account doesn't seem to accomplish anything.
It prevents the user from selling off the data if this is an infrequently checked account (i.e. the user has not had a chance to even make the decision to sell the info).
Not that I agree with the ruling.
Then why didn't the court just authorize google to delete that particular attachment? It's on their servers after all. Google can also see whether the attatchment has been downloaded. There's absolutely no reason why the account should be suspened.
Because the judge is an idiot, and that's not what the bank's lawyers requested?
Being technologically ignorant makes one an idiot?
Maybe a 'real world' example is in order. If the bank accidentally mailed confidential information to a random person's PO Box, then sent a mail to that person's PO Box requesting that they return the package... it would be a similar scenario. The package was sent to the wrong place and the bank is obscured from knowing the identity of the real person behind that address.
This judge's ruling is akin to allowing the bank to force the Postal Service to remove that person's PO Box account and burn all the mail inside of it in an attempt to destroy the confidential information. This is wrong on so many levels it's not funny.
1) The bank has no confirmation that the confidential information has has not been already removed from the PO Box.
2) The bank is destroying all of that person's other mail and preventing future mail from reaching that person in an attempt to correct their mistake (which is only related to a single piece of mail).
If the judge wanted to allow them access to the PO Box to remove the mail, then so be it. The current ruling makes no sense. As alex_c said, someone making important decisions about a matter (technology or otherwise) CANNOT use ignorance as an excuse. Some person that's never used a computer can be as technologically ignorant as they like, but someone that holds a position of responsibility is a different issue.
Hopefully "deactivate" simply means preventing the owner of the account from logging in. It is possible to deactivate an email account while storing incoming email and preserving the contents of that person's account - just in a way inaccessible to them. That way, it could simply be temporary - especially if appealed.
It's an absolutely terrible decision, but I think (hope?) it will be more akin to them changing the lock on your PO Box and not allowing you to access its contents until the situation is cleared up. Clearly not an acceptable decision, but it's better than permanently losing everything and can be appealed by the account's holder.
Plus, if the deactivation was a destruction of the person's data, that would put the bank at huge liability I would have to think. People have important emails and I don't think any jury would side with the bank. Imagine presenting that case to a jury. "The bank screwed up and to cover their ass, they destroyed all my email - all my personal and professional communications; important documents. . ."
Just as a datapoint, my wife once received a comprehensive account history including balance, full social security and PIN. Very scary to have all that information in one document, imagine if it had been my wife's information instead of some random Korean national whose address bore no similarity to hers!
We took the document to the bank of course, they promised to "fix" her address, entirely unconcerned at the fact that they had just mailed out random personal information to a different customer. We're no longer with that bank.
Google isn't the postal service and has no contractual obligations to its email users. The judge might well think anyone who allows his livelihood to depend on a freebie that Google can withdraw any time it wants is an 'idiot'. Who could blame him?
The only other way that a person can get email on the internet is through a hosting/colo/vps service. Hosting services are notoriously quick to just turn over information at the sign of any trouble. If this user's email was hosted on a hosting service that he/she had paid for, chances are that his/her information would have been handed over to the bank as soon as the words 'lawyer' and/or 'court' were mentioned.
It's funny then that Google -- with their free service -- has shown more compassion for this user's privacy rights than a paid service would have. (Note that I realize this 'compassion' is out of need to protect a brand, yadda yadda yadda)
And in any case, since Google has no 'contractual obligations' to its email users, do you think that it would be right and proper for the judge to order Google to shut down all free gmail addresses in the hopes that it would prevent problems for this bank? Afterall, it's a free service right? All of those users are idiots, right?
If one is making important technology decisions while being technologically ignorant - yes.
I think people on this board especially understand that something as simple as an email account can directly affect our means of making a living and can have very serious consequences, therefore we understand that a blanket deactivation could be the equivalent of "to help me fix my mistake, you must lose your job."
To non-geeks loosing an email account isn't as big of a deal, so it's easy to see why a judge would not realize the significance.
I know many non-geeks who would consider losing their email account a big deal and would be upset. More than just geeks rely on their online identities to talk and work.
I think the point he was trying to make was how much does the Judge value electronic mail. Not much apparently.
The problem is more general, that the current set of lawyers, policy makers and the like just aren't familiar with anything digital. Given 20 years, when the current law students/other 20-somethings, who have grown up with the Internet, iPhones and a constant connectivity to anyone you want, start getting into policy creating offices and sitting as judges, I expect to see many changes to the way issues like this are handled.
I wonder if anyone has heard anything at all from the holder of the Gmail account? I mean it could very well be that the emails just ended up in spam, but I think it more likely that the email account simply isn't used anyway.
That said it is obvious that no one wants their email account to be terminated, especially not those who use it for business, and if the court has that power to simply deactivate someone's account then something is very wrong with our judicial system.