New Google Privacy changes

[warescouse]

As most of VMs users will be aware they have been receiving an email from Google outlining the changes in Google T&C's. It seems to me that the long and short of it is that if you disagree with the the new changes, which I happen to believe weaken a persons privacy, you have to stop using Google services to safely remove yourself from the Privacy ignoring beast. Opt out with cookies is not a satisfactory answer.

Since VM I believe are now using GMail services for the email account of users, hence the emails from big G, what happens to any users who decide to do as such and opt out of the Google monster. Are they automatically entitled to cease their contact with VM or perhaps even have to?

I think I maybe right in saying that an account must have a VM email address to function online etc for many services.

I guess a similar scenario could possibly be argued for all those android phone users who may want to do the same. Google market and safety updates for optional Apps and also built in apps are an integral part of the Android functionality. If you log into your online Google account using your GMail address you can see all your 'mobile' App D/L's etc.

Has Google, or Google using companies, considered these knock on issues I wondered?

[v0id]

I believe the email and web service are a courtesy and you can 'opt out' of them at anytime by deleting your virginmedia mailboxes at my.virginmedia.com.
You don't need a Virginmedia email address to have a Virginmedia account (But you will need an email address to access online billing)

[Peter_]

You cannot delete your Primary email address but you can use a third party email address in its place to access MyVirginmedia.

[Nopanic]

As above, email is one of the value added services, if you choose not to use it, then that's completely your choice, it has no impact on your contract with VM.

[Wild Oscar]

Surely deleting an actual Google Account wouldn't affect third part services , such as Virgin Mail?

The two are different things ...

[qasdfdsaq]

Virgin Mail *is* Google Mail.

[BenMcr]

Virgin Mail *is* Google Mail.Sort of - it uses Google Apps, but it's not Google Mail

---------- Post added at 11:55 ---------- Previous post was at 11:48 ----------

This also affected Sky customers and there is an official response from Google here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/30/sky_users_get_google_privacy_email/

[qasdfdsaq]

OK, technically not the same "service" but the same back-end and all mail to @virginmedia.com goes via *.google.com and *.googlemail.com servers.

Since all the mail gets handled in the US on Google's Gmail servers, I'd say it's pretty much Google mail.

[Hugh]

Not necessarily - the mail storage "follows the sun", so is constantly moving between the many, many Google data centres, and if you are in a certain category (some businesses / Google EDU), your mail is only stored in "Safe Harbour" countries.

[qasdfdsaq]

Ach, my bad. Storage is controlled, but the MX records and hence your mail routing is at the mercy of Google's DNS:

[maru]yhuang: dig -t mx virginmedia.com

; <<>> DiG 9.7.3-P3-RedHat-9.7.3-2.el6_1.P3.3 <<>> -t mx virginmedia.com
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 53255
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;virginmedia.com. IN MX

;; ANSWER SECTION:
virginmedia.com. 3600 IN MX 10 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
virginmedia.com. 3600 IN MX 10 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
virginmedia.com. 3600 IN MX 1 aspmx.l.google.com.
virginmedia.com. 3600 IN MX 5 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
virginmedia.com. 3600 IN MX 5 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.

All these return localised results, i.e. if the sender is in the US, they'll be routed to a US GMail server, and in any case they'll end up with the same server or datacentres whether they're emailing a @gmail.com or @virginmedia.com address.

[Stuart]

As most of VMs users will be aware they have been receiving an email from Google outlining the changes in Google T&C's. It seems to me that the long and short of it is that if you disagree with the the new changes, which I happen to believe weaken a persons privacy, you have to stop using Google services to safely remove yourself from the Privacy ignoring beast. Opt out with cookies is not a satisfactory answer.

Since VM I believe are now using GMail services for the email account of users, hence the emails from big G, what happens to any users who decide to do as such and opt out of the Google monster. Are they automatically entitled to cease their contact with VM or perhaps even have to?

I think I maybe right in saying that an account must have a VM email address to function online etc for many services.

I guess a similar scenario could possibly be argued for all those android phone users who may want to do the same. Google market and safety updates for optional Apps and also built in apps are an integral part of the Android functionality. If you log into your online Google account using your GMail address you can see all your 'mobile' App D/L's etc.

Has Google, or Google using companies, considered these knock on issues I wondered?

According to a google spokesman (taken from the The Register article above)
"Due to a glitch in our system, we misclassified some Google Apps email accounts as consumer Gmail accounts and mistakenly sent these users email notifications about the Privacy Policy. While Google provides the backend service that powers these users’ email accounts, we do not have any direct relationship with these users and contacted them in error."

Put simply, your contract is with Virgin Media. They subcontract their mail service to Google, so the only privacy policy that applies is the one from VM.

Of course, with Android, Google require you to sign up with them seperately from any contract you have with a phone company, so then their privacy policy applies.