The appointment of Eric Holder as the head of DOJ could be the defining moment of Obama's presidency. Everything Eric Holder is involved in is turning into a huge pile of shit.
Even if the data is stored encrypted, Google can always decrypt it on an as needed basis (since they serve ads based on the content of the email messages.)
I read Google's post and Microsoft's response and Google's update to the post and Microsoft's response to the update as well: http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/04/gentlemen-take-this-outside...
Considering all arguments, I think there is more to this story than what Google told in the blog post.
The fact that they did not even mention that they were offered to be part of the joint bid in the initial post raises a lot of questions.
They are being hypocritical by saying that Apple and Msft bid many more times than what those patents are really worth, when Google itself bid upto 4 billion dollars. And what gaurantee does Google provide that they wouldn't sue competitors aggressively? Dont tell me its because their 'motto' is Dont be evil.
Gruber is no Google-lover, but in this case he is right on the money for calling out Google's hypocrisy. What if Google won the Nortel patents with their pi billion dollars bid?
Google is not evil by nature (though i have my own doubts) and Facebook is also not evil by nature. Facebook simply has a different philosophy on _sharing_. They believe that people should share everything and be more social. If this is not something people are not comfortable with, then those people have no business in signing up for facebook and complaining that everything is shared by default.
As far as Google's privacy 'glitches' are concerned, in my experience bugs make it into production accidentally. But pieces of code that are developed specifically to sample wifi packets that might contain sensitive data or code that exposes all my email contacts to the entire world do not make into production accidentally.
