Brin's claim that he doesn't know exactly how many ads Google is serving comes at an odd time, since Gmail's highly targeted in-box ads have quickly raised a massive privacy stink. Even as we spoke, California state Sen. Liz Figueroa was in the process of drafting legislation banning the service from California, which is Google's home state.

"We're in the process of drafting a piece of legislation that would really ban the Gmail concept that Google is pushing forward," Figueroa told Salon. "Our premise is that it is an invasion of privacy. They are scanning for content purposes. I know that e-mail is scanned in a general way but this is a scan in a specific way for marketing purposes."

When Salon posed the question of what, exactly, was wrong with this, if users knew about it beforehand, Sen. Figueroa noted that many users don't read privacy policies, and pointed out that third parties who send e-mail to Gmail users are unknowingly submitting to having their e-mail scanned.

Indeed, the third-party question is at the heart of the legislation, California S.B. 1822, which Figueroa introduced the day after speaking with Salon. The law would forbid the review of e-mail content unless Google (or any other e-mail provider) first obtains the consent of all the parties to an e-mail conversation -- senders, receivers, everyone. If it passes, the bill will not only block Gmail from scanning incoming e-mails, but it could also end up prohibiting employers and other e-mail providers from filtering e-mail for objectionable content.

"I think more and more people don't have the time [to read agreements], or just don't realize how far it's gone," says Figueroa, who acknowledges that she hasn't used Gmail. "And yes, somebody's got to say for everybody 'privacy is really an issue for me. I want you to think of that foremost on the agenda so we start with that.' We have to make Google be aware that this is a product that's somewhat offensive to a lot of people. "

Oh, but they are. They are.

"I think a lot of people got up in arms before they saw the product," says Brin. "That was a little unfortunate the way we released it. As a consequence of that, most people who have heard about it, the only thing they have access to is the privacy policy. In many cases, there's misinformation out there. I think many are misunderstandings of the product."

For example, one of the early rumors swirling around Gmail that sprung from unclear wording in Gmail's privacy policy was that e-mail would be archived forever -- regardless of whether or not you delete it. Regardless, even, if you close your account. Not so, says Brin.

"That was our fault for not having carefully enough worded the privacy policy," he notes. "It's exactly the same as any other Web-mail services. We have a variety of backups because we never want to lose mail. We do in fact delete the messages. It just sometimes takes a while to propagate the messages through all the proxies."

But in the meantime, Privacy International filed a complaint against Google in 16 countries on April 19.

"Google is showing its true colors. The company pays lip service to privacy but in this case has demonstrated no real commitment to it," fumed P.I.'s Simon Davies in a press release. "I am beginning to suspect that Google looks at privacy in the same way that a worm looks at a fishhook."

Far from it. The privacy issue is overblown. Indeed, as Sen. Figueroa herself points out, virtually every piece of e-mail sent across the Internet is already scanned by robots, be it for spam or viruses. If you have a problem with robots reading your mail -- with or without your consent -- you're going to have to go back to the U.S. Postal Service, or start encrypting everything. Similarly, the demands that Google erect a "wall" between Gmail and its other sites -- such as Search, Groups or Orkut -- are not only preposterous, they are counterproductive to the best interests of consumers. Not only that, but it appears that Google's critics are holding it to a different standard than its competitors. Yahoo and MSN (Hotmail) both collect vastly more personal data that can be linked back to e-mail accounts, including address books, search data and even stock portfolios.

Sometimes, data should be aggregated. It makes for more convenient, useful applications. Would you rather your e-mail not be linked to your address book? Do you really want to have to log in again and again when you try to navigate across the Yahoo suite of Web sites? Is it intrinsically bad for MSN Messenger to notify me when new e-mail arrives in my Hotmail account?

More important, says Brin, is protecting the data you choose to allow Google to handle.

"We treat the data with great care and we never let any personal data get out in any form," he says. "If you log into Orkut, yeah it'd be nice to see if you have unread messages, so I don't think that it makes sense to have complete walls. A single e-mail can be very, very sensitive. Therefore we have to treat every single bit very carefully. I'm not sure the aggregation makes that huge of a difference, because ultimately we have to be very guarded about all data. But we will use good judgment."

What remains to be seen is whether its critics can be counted on to use good judgment as well.

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