Google: Yes, We Scan!

Have you ever gone on a website and seen an ad for exactly what you were talking about to a friend online? Creepy, right?

Well, if you needed more proof that you’re being watched, Google has just flat-out confirmed it. They want you to know that, yes, they scan… every single email and document.

When you sign up for any type of Google account, including Gmail, as of April 14, 2014, you’ll find a new paragraph in the terms and conditions:

Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.

Our automated systems analyze your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customized search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection. This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored. (source)

This applies to any Google product that you use with your account: Gmail, Youtube, Google+, Google Maps, Google’s search engine, Google Chrome, Picasa Web Albums…the list goes on and on. Click HERE to find out more of the ways they can spy on you services Google offers.

Not everyone believes that Google’s snooping is an act of goodwill and a way to provide you a more “personalized” experience. In fact, some folks are downright mad, enough so that they sued the gigantic company. Spoiler alert: Google won.

The change comes as Google undergoes a lawsuit over its e-mail scanning, with the plaintiffs complaining that Google violated their privacy.

E-mail users brought the lawsuit against Google in 2013, alleging that the company was violating wiretapping laws by scanning the content of e-mails. The plaintiffs’ complaints vary, but some of the cases include people who sent their e-mails to Gmail users from non-Gmail accounts and nonetheless had their content scanned. They argue that since they didn’t use Gmail, they didn’t consent to the scanning.

US District Judge Lucy Koh refused Google’s motion to dismiss the case in September. Koh also denied the plaintiffs class-action status in March on the grounds that the ways that Google might have notified the various parties of its e-mail scanning are too different, and she could not decide the case with a single judgment. (source)

Every breath you take, every move you make, every step you take, Google will be watching you.

Every single day, every word you type, every game you play, Google will be watching you. And now, they aren’t even trying to hide it.