InformationWeek is reporting that University of California-Davis has decided to stop using Google Gmail over privacy concerns. The University was engaged in a trial of the paid Gmail program for 30,000 of its faculty and staff members.
Some interesting quotes from the story:
- Many faculty “expressed concerns that our campus’s commitment to protecting the privacy of their communications is not demonstrated by Google and that the appropriate safeguards are neither in place at this time nor planned for in the near future,” the letter said.
- “Though there are different interpretations of these sections, the mere emergence of significant disagreement on these points undermines confidence in whether adopting Google’s Gmail service would be consistent with the policy,” the letter states.
- The UC Davis IT leaders’ letter additionally stated that “outsourcing e-mail may not be in compliance with the University of California Electronic Communications Policy.” The policy forbids the university from disclosing or examining the contents of e-mails without the account holder’s consent, and from distributing e-mails to third parties.
This could have major ramifications to Google if other Universities, Medical Practices, Legal Practices and other profession service companies reach the same conclusion regarding the lack of Privacy with Gmail.
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