Google is being sued by four UC Berkeley students and alumni for emails that were scanned and targeted for mining data. Even though the emails are a few years old, the plaintiffs discovered that information within sensitive emails were used for advertising purposes. This caused them to file a lawsuit because UC Berkeley did not give Google permission to data mine in Google's Apps for Education communication methods. Google has faced similar charges to this, but has proved that the past plaintiff gave permission to them. Ryan Corley, one of the four students, said "that the scanning of emails by Google would constitute an 'invasion of privacy'." The students are pushing hard against Google due to the information that could be used to find out about inventions, drug compounds, and collaborating people that they do not what to be released.
It is a bit concerning to me that Google can scan emails that could contain important and sensitive information. The information found in these type of emails could be unintentionally leaked and bring bad light towards a business or people that were trying to do something good. It has been proven that companies and strong security systems can be hacked into and have data taken from them for the hackers to use as they wish. I know that some people that I work with on projects could not want their name to be know, for their own personal reasons, to have worked on specific content, but an insecurity communication method could ruin the value of such content. Also, that situation could further hinder future projects with said people.
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