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Why you should stop using Gmail
This is an article on why you should stop using the Gmail platform and choose a privacy focused alternative.
Index
04.0 - Anti-competitive behavior
06.0 - Other things to check out
Overview
Like other Google products, Gmail has a history of privacy and performance issues.
General description from Wikipedia: GMail - Data from Februry 19th 2021 at 4:15:51 pm (PT: Pacific Time)
Gmail is a free email service developed by Google. Users can access Gmail on the web and using third-party programs that synchronize email content through POP or IMAP protocols. Gmail started as a limited beta release on April 1, 2004 and ended its testing phase on July 7, 2009. By October 2019, Gmail had 1.5 billion active users worldwide.
At launch, Gmail had an initial storage capacity offer of one gigabyte per user, a significantly higher amount than competitors offered at the time. Today, the service comes with 15 gigabytes of storage. Users can receive emails up to 50 megabytes in size, including attachments, while they can send emails up to 25 megabytes. In order to send larger files, users can insert files from Google Drive into the message. Gmail has a search-oriented interface and a "conversation view" similar to an Internet forum. The service is notable among website developers for its early adoption of Ajax.
Google's mail servers automatically scan emails for multiple purposes, including to filter spam and malware, and to add context-sensitive advertisements next to emails. This advertising practice has been significantly criticized by privacy advocates due to concerns over unlimited data retention, ease of monitoring by third parties, users of other email providers not having agreed to the policy upon sending emails to Gmail addresses, and the potential for Google to change its policies to further decrease privacy by combining information with other Google data usage. The company has been the subject of lawsuits concerning the issues. Google has stated that email users must "necessarily expect" their emails to be subject to automated processing and claims that the service refrains from displaying ads next to potentially sensitive messages, such as those mentioning race, religion, sexual orientation, health, or financial statements. In June 2017, Google announced the end to the use of contextual Gmail content for advertising purposes, relying instead on data gathered from the use of its other services.
Privacy
Google has a very very bad record when it comes to user privacy. (I could go on and on with evidence of this, but it took a long time to find and go through all these articles)
Privacy on Google products is always bad, due to all Google products containing spyware.
No matter what you do, when you are using Google, all of your sensitive personal data is being sent to Google and others. Google has also been spotted going through open programs. For example, from personal experience (on Firefox) with a YouTube tab open that I didn't visit, I watched several videos offline (VLC Media Player) Later when I went to check the recommendations, it was nearly everything that I had watched. There is no doubt they are spying on other programs too.
In Chrome (and many other browsers) an incognito mode is present. In Chrome, this mode is pointless, as Google will still mine your data. Even if you turn data mining/tracking off, and enable the "do not track" signal, surprise suprise, Google is still mining your data.
If you think you have nothing to hide, you are absolutely wrong. This argument has been debunked many times over:
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Edward Snowden remarked "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say. "When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights."
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Daniel J. Solove stated in an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education that he opposes the argument; he stated that a government can leak information about a person and cause damage to that person, or use information about a person to deny access to services even if a person did not actually engage in wrongdoing, and that a government can cause damage to one's personal life through making errors. Solove wrote "When engaged directly, the nothing-to-hide argument can ensnare, for it forces the debate to focus on its narrow understanding of privacy. But when confronted with the plurality of privacy problems implicated by government data collection and use beyond surveillance and disclosure, the nothing-to-hide argument, in the end, has nothing to say."
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Adam D. Moore, author of Privacy Rights: Moral and Legal Foundations, argued, "it is the view that rights are resistant to cost/benefit or consequentialist sort of arguments. Here we are rejecting the view that privacy interests are the sorts of things that can be traded for security." He also stated that surveillance can disproportionately affect certain groups in society based on appearance, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion.
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Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and cryptographer, expressed opposition, citing Cardinal Richelieu's statement "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged", referring to how a state government can find aspects in a person's life in order to prosecute or blackmail that individual. Schneier also argued "Too many wrongly characterize the debate as 'security versus privacy.' The real choice is liberty versus control."
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Harvey A. Silverglate estimated that the common person, on average, unknowingly commits three felonies a day in the US.
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Emilio Mordini, philosopher and psychoanalyst, argued that the "nothing to hide" argument is inherently paradoxical. People do not need to have "something to hide" in order to hide "something". What is hidden is not necessarily relevant, claims Mordini. Instead, he argues an intimate area which can be both hidden and access-restricted is necessary since, psychologically speaking, we become individuals through the discovery that we could hide something to others.
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Julian Assange stated "There is no killer answer yet. Jacob Appelbaum (@ioerror) has a clever response, asking people who say this to then hand him their phone unlocked and pull down their pants. My version of that is to say, 'well, if you're so boring then we shouldn't be talking to you, and neither should anyone else', but philosophically, the real answer is this: Mass surveillance is a mass structural change. When society goes bad, it's going to take you with it, even if you are the blandest person on earth."
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Ignacio Cofone, law professor, argues that the argument is mistaken in its own terms because, whenever people disclose relevant information to others, they also disclose irrelevant information. This irrelevant information has privacy costs and can lead to other harms, such as discrimination.
Gmail is the same as all other Google products, it contains spyware, as Google is not just a search company, they are a user data company, and you are the product. To Google, you are only worth about $700.00 (unless you are making them ad revenue) Gmail has been criticized for scanning all emails to deliver more targeted ads.
Alternative solutions
Gmail is an email service that has declined over time. There are many good alternatives to gmail. The only con is that you might have to get a new email address and start from new, due to Google owning your gmail account.
Privacy focused
ProtonMail - I recommend this service the most (please note that I am not affiliated with Proton Technologies AG or ProtonMail, but I would like to be) ProtonMail is an email service that uses high level encryption, along with zero point encryption (where nobody but you can read your emails) tracking is disabled by default, and the parent company is based in Switzerland (which is viewed as the best country in the world when it comes to privacy, full location: Geneva, 🇨🇭 Switzerland; Europe, note that the flag of Switzerland and the Red Cross/Red crescent movement are separate, the difference between the flags is that the Red Cross flag is inverted (red on white, instead of white on red))
- Pros:
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High level encryption
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Zero point encryption (encryption where nobody but you can read your emails)
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Advanced settings
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Good spam filter
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Based in 🇨🇭 Switzerland, which guarantees you extra privacy
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Respects your privacy
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Very good security
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Is compliant with web standards, and will work on all top web browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Tor, Brave, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 11, Safari, Waterfox, Opera, etc.)
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Memory efficient
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No cookies
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No trackers
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Is open source
12.1. Is not gmail
- Neutral
- Comes with 500 Megabytes of storage (can hold about 90000 emails) it costs money to upgrade your storage to 5 Gigabytes or 10 gigabytes
- Cons:
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Some features (custom domains, multiple users, more storage, etc.) cost money at a monthly/yearly/every 2 years subscription cost
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A little bit slow in some areas (for me, it takes about 15 minutes to delete 4000 emails)
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Emails can only be selected by up to 50 at a time
Other
Outlook - By Microsoft - Not recommended
- Pros:
- Comes with 5 gigabytes of storage
1.1. Is not gmail
- Cons:
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Bad spam filter
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Does not respect user privacy
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Has some security issues
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Is not compliant with web standards, and may prevent you from viewing on certain browsers
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Memory inefficient
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Uses trackng cookies
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Uses trackers
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Is proprietary
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The US government is known to spy on users emails
This list is incomplete
Anti-competitive behavior
Google tries to keep you in its monopoly with Gmail by trapping its users and making it harder to transition to other email programs.
Section is subject for removal
Controversies
These are some notable controversies with Gmail.
Mic drop April Fools joke
On April 1st, 2016, an April Fools joke was added where a microphone drop button was added, which would close and archive the email and include a Minions GIF of a microphone drop. The button was next to the send button, and also had send, but with a headache inducing microphone animation. The incident caused a lot of problems, and caused some people to get fired.
Sources: https://www.blog.google/products/gmail/introducing-gmail-mic-drop/
October 2020 redesign
In October 2020, Gmail had its icon changed from this:
To this:
The logo change was designed to make Gmail similar to other Google app icons, but due to the overly basic 4 color palette being used on so many Google products, it caused a lot more confusion, and a lot of people hate the new logo, as it no longer looks like an email program and is no longer unique. Due to these changes, it is a lot harder for many users to use Google products (especially for users over the age of 40) due to the decreased recognition of differences, as all the icons look too similar now.
Other things to check out
The Google Graveyard (killedbygoogle.com) - a sorted list of the 224+ products Google has killed
Alphabet worker union - The new workers union at Google with over 800 members
Don't want to part with the dinosaur easter egg? This website has you covered
There are other alternates, just search for them.
Some fact checking is needed for this article
Article info
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File version: 1 (Friday, February 19th 2021 at 4:47 pm)
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File history
Version 1 (Friday, February 19th 2021 at 4:47 pm)
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