Pixelated Semantics

Gmail's got a major privacy problem

After logging into my gmail account following several months of inactivity, I was not surprised to see a large quantity of spam and junk email waiting for me. What did cause alarm as I scanned through them, was the number of emails that were not addressed to my account, but to similarly named accounts. For example, suppose my account name is something like william.s@gmail, my inbox is then also recieving mail for williams@gmail, williamshakespeare@gmail, and so on. In other words, the service is incorrectly parsing and/or delivering messages, creating a massive issue regarding privacy, and a great deal of uncertainty whether messages being sent to gmail accounts are being recieved by the right people at all, at any time. This is so significant a flaw that gmail accounts should not be used or written to until this is properly resolved in my opinion, especially if you are attempting to conduct confidential exchanges of information. Google has responded only with a form reply to my concerns so far, very unsatisfactory considering the implications. Consider closing or suspending your account if you are using one, and also notifying anyone writing to that account that your communications are quite possibly severely compromised.

Update: it appears from another blog post this issue was first noticed over 6 months ago, and that nothing seems to have been done to rectify the situation - a very poor level of response indeed. Another email addressed to a similarly named user has arrived in the last hour to my inbox. Consider the implications of a post office that was consistently delivering mail to incorrect addresses: it would be clearly unsustainable as a business.

Item posted by AutoEditor at 10:40 am ::