The Californian state Senate has voted to introduce safeguards on email services that, like Google's Gmail, scan incoming and outgoing email for specific terms in order to display advertisements. Google views its new email service as an extension of its advertising business.
Despite intensive lobbying, and the full weight of right-wing think tanks and Internet marketing hypesters, keen to exploit the commercial potential of personal data troves, the Senate voted 24-8 to prevent the misuse of the data.
Few will object to the terms in Sen. Liz Figueroa's bill, which explicitly allows instant messaging and email providers to scan the text of messages for advertising and to remove spam and malicious code. However, data-hoarders won't be able to transfer it to third-parties or allow their staff to examine emails without consent. Most importantly, the service provider is forbidden from retaining "personally identifiable information or user characteristics obtained, derived, or inferred" from the scanning process.
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