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by Mike Masnick

Thu, Apr 22nd 2004 4:43pm





California Senator Moves Forward With Plan To Ban Gmail

from the wonderful dept

Following up on already announced intentions (and apparently ignoring everyone who explained why this is a terrible, terrible idea), California Senator Liz Figueroa has introduced a bill to ban Gmail saying that - even though Google is upfront about scanning emails to offer contextual advertising and it's a choice of the user - it should be illegal. Her complaint is that Google will use email contents as a "direct marketing opportunity." I hadn't realized that there was anything illegal about direct marketing. If we're going to go after direct marketers there are an awful lot of direct marketing practices that I would target before a perfectly useful, perfectly upfront company's email client.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Non@non.com, Apr 23rd, 2004 @ 12:59am

    jeez

    WHAT a dumb bitch.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Jeff, Apr 23rd, 2004 @ 5:34am

    The question is 'Who's paying her to try and stop

    You know politicians don't do anything with someone pulling their strings. So who's behind this? Yahoo? Microsoft?

    Who knows?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    OldYeller, Apr 23rd, 2004 @ 6:44am

    Clueless

    This person's truly clueless, Jeff's right, or both.

    Hell, why not pass a law that requires email senders to be made aware of the applications & services used by the recipient, so they can opt out of sending their email if they don't like them?

    If she wants to use her 15 minutes of fame, she should pick a better issue.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Director Mitch, Apr 23rd, 2004 @ 7:46am

    Re: Clueless

    > Democrat from the Bay Area city of Fremont< br>I think this explains everything.


    In addition, Google is offering GMail now to Blogger Plus users. So far I like it a lot.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    identicon
    Tom, Apr 23rd, 2004 @ 10:06am

    Senator Figueroa & Gmail

    If you think spending millions in tax dollars to pass and enforce a law banning Gmail (and loads of other similar, useful services) then send an email to Senator.Figueroa@sen.ca.gov. Tell her that if someone doesn't like GMail, then they can simply not sign up for it. Please circulate this email address (without spamming anyone). And keep the flames to a minimum, no matter how tempting. It will be more effective that way. (Sen. Liz Figueroa is the CA State Senator from Fremont, District 10).

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    phantrithuc, Jul 6th, 2007 @ 9:35am

    ddd

    dd

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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