Student Gmail Accounts Are Now Free from Scanning, But What About Everyone Else?

Google has stopped scanning student Gmail accounts in the free Google Apps for Education service, used by 30 million students, teachers, and school administrators, the Wall Street Journal reports. The move comes after a group of students and Gmail users sued Google in a California court in 2013, arguing that the email scans violated state and federal wiretap laws. Other observers, like Education Week magazine, said that the scanning may violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

Though Google didn't advertise to students on the service, the company data mined email accounts for the purposes of selling ads to students outside of Google Apps for Education. But, if Google recognizes the privacy issue inherent in scanning student email accounts, why isn't the same logic applied to the millions of other Gmail users? Putting aside the lawsuit's wiretap argument for a moment, Google's scanning of email contents—whether automated or not—is akin to the opening of letters, and the storing and analyzing of that information. Even if a mindless robot could open mail, read the message, then put letters back together without a human seeing any details, the information would still be bound for a database where it could be accessed and analyzed at some future point in time. While the United States Postal service scans information on the outside of letters and packages (similar to metadata mining), postal workers are barred from actually reading your correspondence.

Granted, the USPS is a federal bureau, and Google a private corporation whose revenue stream is based off of ads made smarter by user data. (Gmail has to be paid for somehow, after all.) But email users, like those who use the post office, should have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the sending and receiving of email. Such electronic messages are, like personal letters, private. In that way they're markedly different from posting status updates on Facebook or Twitter, or using Google's search engine, though the ethics of data mining public communication is open to debate as well.

Google updated its Terms of Service earlier this month to clarify its scanning practices. "Our automated systems analyse your content (including emails) to provide you personally relevant product features, such as customised search results, tailored advertising, and spam and malware detection," wrote Google. "This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored.”

Bram Bout, director of Google for Education, also told the Journal that Google is making similar changes to the app services it offers business and government users. So, again, why is Google privileging select users' privacy? Indeed, why is Google granting students, businesses, and government users the expectation of privacy, and withholding it from the rest of its 400+ million users?

Part of the reason may be that Google won a big legal battle in March of this year. Originally, Gmail users sued Google over Gmail scanning as part of a class action lawsuit. But, Google's lawyers were able to successfully convince US District Judge Lucy Koh that the groups were too dissimilar to be grouped together in a class action. The plaintiffs now have to sue Google separately or in smaller groups, which makes it harder for them to slug it out with Google over time.

With the student group, Google relented and ceased scanning the Google Apps for Education Gmail accounts. As far as public relations go, it was a battle it likely didn't want. And if and when another group wins a suit, Google may have to cease email scanning for another group. But for the moment, Google can essentially pick and choose which users enjoy complete privacy.

What else would you expect? Google can offer Gmail for free because it's ad-supported, and remains a significant part of its ad business. Ultimately, Google has every right to profit off its applications. But if Google is able to balance the privacy of some subset of users, perhaps Larry Page and Sergey Brin should rethink how their company profits off of Gmail user data. At the very least, it'd be interesting to see the firm tinker with a paid, scan-free model, especially because then we'd be able to put a concrete number on what our email data is worth.