Google confidentiality???

Discussion in 'Living in Cancun' started by jenleib, Feb 8, 2007.

  1. jenleib

    jenleib Addict Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 18, 2005
    Messages:
    445
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    St Pete/Fort Lauderdale
    Ratings:
    +0 / 0
    One of my emails is Gmail, not that I am very happy with it, but many people know it, and each one is specialized. CancunCare know Yahoo. Some of you know Gmail! Steve another one :wink:

    Anyway, a few days ago, I received a Read Receipt (not read, deleted without reading) from one person (X) who had no reason to send it to me, since I had not sent the email in question to her.

    I sent a message to MS discussion groups, and they answered that the email must have been redirected to X. I was very surprised, the receivee of the email should not redirect it to X. But you never know...

    Except that today, I received several Read Receipts (again, deleted without reading) from different persons, one of them I have no idea who she is, and I am wondering if it wouldn't be a Google confidentiality issue. I had been told that Google sell your info.... Not sure about that either.

    Would some of you already have had this kind of problem?

    Thanks a lot for any idea.
     
  2. DConCT

    DConCT CC's SB Godfather Registered Member

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2006
    Messages:
    6,787
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    connecticut, usa
    Ratings:
    +1 / 0
    I've actually never heard of your situation so I would venture that it is a unique occurence.

    However, as a marketing veteran I can honestly say that if your email address exists.... it is most probably being sold/traded/utilized by many different entities with or without your permission. It is the nature of the beast.
     
  3. Michael F.

    Michael F. Moderator/1st CC Member Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 17, 2003
    Messages:
    4,033
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    TX
    Ratings:
    +1 / 0
    maybe a 'bot secreted itself in your CPU and is trying to spread to other peeps in your mailouts or contact list and these are being intercepted and terminated by those peeps' anti-virus software?
     
  4. RiverGirl

    RiverGirl Guest

    Ratings:
    +0 / 0
    I don't know if I understand fully what's going on but I doubt it has to do with GMail. I suspect that there's a virus involved or some kind of spam thing happening.

    I use Gmail religiously. I bow to the Google god. I'm of the opinion that if your email is sitting out there on a server somewhere it's not confidential. I don't think Gmail is any more guilty of any breach of privacy than Hotmail or Yahoo or any other email provider or web host. And Gmails user's interface is a lot better than either Yahoo or Hotmail imho.

    The reality is that it's not hard to intercept email and read it. If you are worried about privacy don't send email.

    On the other hand Gmail does lots of things really, really well. I don't have to keep track of my email at all, I can just search for things in a very intuitive way and they are found instantly. Gmail lets me receive email from my other email addresses and I can send FROM those addresses also. This is great for me since I have something like 14 email addresses right now and I need to be able to send from all of them without hassle.

    Gmail also handles email threading beautifully. I belong to several active email lists and sometimes one thread (one email subject) will get 50 replies, with Gmail all those replies are together with the original email, so I can read them all together or not at all.

    And Gmail will automatically put labels on incoming email. So I can set it up to label everything coming in to a specific email address, it makes keeping track of everything a snap. For me Gmail is a godsend...like I said, I bow to the Google God!
     
  5. mixz1

    mixz1 Guest

    Ratings:
    +0 / 0
    "Read" receipt requests, at least as handled by Outlook, which you use, cite the subject of the message. They also cite the email id of the requester. With that in mind, I posit this, partly based on how well I know your machine is protected:

    You have a large pool of correspondents, people you write to on a regular basis. Each and every one of those people have your email address either as part of their Outlook .pst file or their Outlook Express .wab file. Many viruses (virii?) are equipped with an SMTP (Simple Message Transfer Protocol) engine. This engine acts as a little mail server. It will pick up an address from the user's address book and send out copies of itself to all the other addresses in that address book using the selected address as a disguise.

    My guess is that someone who has your address has been infected with a virus that is sending copies of itself to each address in the file. If you think about it you can see that this multiples in a Malthusian manner.

    Since not many people request read receipts, the forensics on this is that someone you know, who has Outlook set up to automatically request receipts, and has other people in their book that you also have in your book, has been infected with a virus that's using your email address to send itself on and the reciepts are coming back to you simply because that's the way it works. It's not Google. It's someone you know who is not as careful and security aware as you are.

    When you get the receipt request it's obviously going to be your id listed as the requestor. It would be interesting to know what the subject (listed in quotes) is. Is it really a subject from an email you have sent? Or do you not recognize the subject. That would be important to know.
     
  6. jenleib

    jenleib Addict Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 18, 2005
    Messages:
    445
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    St Pete/Fort Lauderdale
    Ratings:
    +0 / 0
    Thanks a lot, M.... As always you do your best to help!

    First, to answer to Kim,

    So, can you tell me how to deal with stuff in France (or everywhere else), with the condition of the snail mail here? I send a lot, every day, because I have urgent and very important things to solve. And Thanks to Skype, but it is not enough. You can hardly send documents through Skype!!! Or I should spend a fortune in Fedex, but anyway it is not fast enough right now.

    Yes, the subject is an email (2 now) I have sent, with a receipt request. Just I didn't send it to those persons. And you know how my machine is protected (are, but it is impossible to download emails from Gmail to 2 machines -which THEY told me-, to Outlook at least, so mostly one is in use).

    So, would I assume it is a virus in their system? Because they are different persons, but in the same company, who have no reason to get my emails. I don't know what email they use. It is a company email adress. I see nothing in the headers that can be of help, but of course I am not a nerd! You know the virus is not in mine.

    :mad:
     
  7. mixz1

    mixz1 Guest

    Ratings:
    +0 / 0
    Jen - Check your email. I'm going to take this private.
     
  8. BiznKitty

    BiznKitty Enthusiast Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2006
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    0
    Ratings:
    +0 / 0
    Hushmail

    Hushmail is probably the most secure free email service available. They don't pass your IP address to the recipient (neither does GMail) and if you want to send secured email, encryption is available. That said, I use GMail for 90% of my mail because of the great user interface and effective spam filtering. Never had a problem.

    FYI

    Biz
     
  9. jenleib

    jenleib Addict Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 18, 2005
    Messages:
    445
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    St Pete/Fort Lauderdale
    Ratings:
    +0 / 0
    Thanks, Biz. I didn't know Hushmail.

    I use Gmail for about 70% of my emails, but they want so badly to be original that they are not always understandable.... and they don't always know what they are talking about (I sent some emails to ask them why I could not do what I wanted the way I wanted, they cannot answer). They do, but that doesn't solve the problem.

    I agree that the filter is good, but the interface is not very important to me. Many times, an email arrives under the first name or the last name of a person (even if it is not the first one). And I never understood the "me" after many. Plus, sometimes (ask Mixz1) they remain on the server, no way to make them arrive to Outlook.

    The most important feature for me is perhaps to download to both computers, which I can do with my other emails. Of course I am not talking about Yahoo or Hotmail that are completely different systems. They are neither POP3 nor IMAP. Would you know if Hushmail allows that?

    As for my first issue, it seems that it is a bug in the system of the company that send them. Mine might spread around, or a receipt is sent from any not involved person.

    I will let them know. Thanks to all for your help.
     
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice