Outline
Overview of Conflict
Establish both sides
Establish the cause
A triggering event in terms of Google
Another possible triggering event in terms of advocacy groups
One possible outcome favoring Google
Another outcome favoring the advocacy groups
Conclusion: Which outcome seems most likely based on the history and current events of the conflict.
Conclusion claim (thesis statement):
Google will finally put a rest to all of the invasion of privacy accusations from advocacy groups.
Premise claim 1 (evidence):
Even though Google is “on the defensive, struggling to convince overseers and its users that it protects consumer data” it argues that “the [wiretap] law is stuck in the past and has failed to keep up with new technologies” (Miller 2013).
Premise claim 2 (evidence):
Google continues to discredit that allegations against it and, “Google’s alleged interception of email content is primarily used to create user profiles and to provide targeted advertising — neither of which is related to the transmission of emails” (Miller, 2013).
References
In this article, the authors compare the VSG mechanism to the GSP auction. The authors highlight the “generalized second price” auction (GSP), a new mechanism which is used by search engines to sell online advertising that most Internet users encounter daily” (Edelman, Benjamin, Michael Ostrovsky, Michael Schwarz, 2005). The authors conclude that it is unusual that the GSP auction “developed as a result of evolution of inefficient market institutions, which were gradually replaced by increasingly superior designs” (Edelman, Benjamin, Michael Ostrovsky, Michael Schwarz, 2005).
I chose this article because it provides an interesting financial argument to the Google Email Ads vs Advocacy Groups conflict. It focuses on an alternative viewpoint as to why Google implemented ads into its email service. His is very helpful because it provides a complex and intellectual argument.
This article investigates “the fact that the only entity to access my personal data (such as email) is an artificial agent is irrelevant to whether a breach of privacy has occurred” (Chopra, Samir, Laurence White). The authors also discuss and directly address the Google Email scanning issue.
This article is helpful because it delves directly into the Google Email scanning issue like a lot of current news articles do. It gives a direct prospective into the issue instead of beating around the bush like other longer articles. It also discusses the value of privacy and the legal implications of the Google in scanning the emails.
This article investigates the role of online advertising in our lives. The authors also discuss the financial and privacy aspects of ads. Thus it discusses financial motivations for advertisements. It also discusses Google as well as compares advertising methods, even in other countries.
This source is not very helpful because it doesn’t discuss Google very much. It only mentions Google 10 times by name in this article. It is helpful because it gives another aspect of the Google Email scanning issue, besides the typical, “Is Google Scanning My Emails?!” But it diverges far away the conflict too much.
The author of this article discusses Google’s shortcomings in its advertising. It is very critical and criticizes the filters and algorithms uses in Google’s ads. The article also discusses Google’s shortcomings in its filters.
This article is not very helpful because it is unrelated to the Google Email scanning issue and it contains a lot of bias. The author is very critical of Google and the article would have been improved if the author talked more about Google’s shortcomings in terms of advertisements in Gmail. There would have added a level of intellectualism to this article if the author discussed the pros and cons of advertisements in Gmail, and weighed the short comings.
This article discusses the role Google has on our lives. It discusses many aspects of our lives that Google has an effect on such as being the number one search engine that we use and having the number one email service, Gmail. It also discusses how Google benefits our lives and how we use Google in our day-to-day lives. It also discusses how Google is a huge global brand.
This article is also helpful because it contains a lot of information about Google and it provides good information about Gmail. It is also beneficial in discussing this topic because it provides other aspects to the Google Email scanning argument besides the fact that people feel like Google is invading their privacy.
This is a photo of Microsoft’s ad campaign scroogled. Microsoft has created its own website called scroogled.com to bash Google. Microsoft wants to increase the use of its Outlook email service. This picture has a short description of Gmail’s email scanning practice. It then encourages Gmail users to switch to its new upgraded email service, Outlook because it says that it doesn’t look through its user’s emails. Being that Gmail is the number one email service provider, Microsoft wants to increase its newly established Outlook usage. Microsoft is one of Google’s main competitors in the rapidly expanding technology market and views this as a way to promote Outlook. Based on this primary source, I know that Gmail’s email practice has been a problem for many people and Microsoft is bringing this to the attention to many people who may not have knowledge of the many invasion of privacy court cases in which Google was sued for its email scanning practice. The time period can be determined based on the source because it includes Outlook, and Outlook was released about one year ago from the date of the picture.
http://s1.cdn.memeburn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/scroogled.jpg
I critiqued these two news articles about my conflict: “Seriously, This Again? New, Aggressive Marketing From Microsoft Warns Gmail Users That Google Reads Their Email” from TechCrunch and “Google: don’t expect privacy when sending to Gmail” from TheGuardian. The articles are similar because they both discuss the Google email ad controversy, but this is probably the only way. The two articles are different because they focus on two different aspects of the Google email ad controversy. The TechCrunch article shows Microsoft’s opinion of the controversy. Microsoft being a major competitor of Google in smartphones, operating systems, and computers, is always critical of Google. It is critisizing Google of scanning emails and its Gmail users. But this article is interesting because the author Sarah Perez, is critisizing Microsoft for criticizing Google and its users. Perez being a TechCrunch writer and having worked in I.T. in a number of industries such as banking, retail and software has probably writen her fair share of articles about Microsoft’s criticism of Google. WIth this in mind, she argues that Microsoft’s argument is outdated and old.
The second article from TheGuardian describes Google’s opinion of its Gmail scanning service. The article refers to a court filing in which Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt stated that “Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it” (Rushe 2013). This sparked outrage despite Google saying “all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing” (Rushe 2013). The author Dominic Rushe, is the US business correspondent for TheGuardian and the this entire article is written in a accusatory tone by saying Gmail users shouldn’t expect privacy. These articles qualify as news because it is relevent because of continued court cases accusing Google of invasion of privacy.
Work Cited
“Seriously, This Again? New, Aggressive Marketing From Microsoft Warns Gmail Users That Google Reads Their Email | TechCrunch.” TechCrunch. TechCrunch, 7 Feb. 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/07/seriously-this-again-new-aggressive-marketing-from-microsoft-warns-gmail-users-that-google-reads-their-email/>.
” Google: don’t expect privacy when sending to Gmail | Technology | The Guardian .” Latest news, world news, sport and comment from the Guardian | theguardian.com | The Guardian . The Guardian, 14 Aug. 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2013. <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/14/google-gmail-users-privacy-email-lawsuit>.
Advocacy Groups are attacking Google because Google uses information from its user’s emails to direct specific ads to specific users. Advocacy Groups want Google to stop violating the privacy of its users in order to direct advertisements. Google only wants people to understand that this practice of using email information to direct advertisements has been in place since Gmail’s creation in 2004. Despite various court cases since 2004, in which Gmail users have accused Google of invasion of privacy, Google continues to scan its user’s emails in order to direct ads that it deems appropriate and interesting for each user. Google argues that computers, not humans scan emails for keywords and that scanning for keywords is not the same as reading the content of emails. Also Google’s lawyers argue that all email providers process emails in similar ways that Google does (Healey 2013). Still despite all of the many failed court cases, advocacy groups still are making accusations.
References:
Healey, J. (2013, August 15). Privacy advocates attack Gmail – again- for email scanning. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/15/news/la-ol-google-gmail-privacy-reasonable-expectation-20130814
Information Literacy: Conflicts 
