[governance] Blogpost: Gmail Hell Day 4: Dealing with the Borg (Or "Being Evil" Without Really Thinking About It

[michael gurstein]

My gmail service is now restored thanks be to the Google gods... And I'll be
writing about the overall experience in a new blogpost...

But apropos of this discussion... The issue I think isn't a technical one
with a technical solution, rather my ills (and gmails attempts at
resolution) would have been avoided more or less completely with a
functioning, usable "help" facility at gmail. That there wasn't a human
interface, that the "help forums" to which I was pointed are a completely
out of control information flea market (try looking for a key to the lock on
your front door in the Paris Peuce for example..., that nobody at gmail ever
seems to answer their emails all resulted in a very significant interruption
in my service and who knows what direct or indirect costs to me... And
imagine if in the not unlikely circumstance there had been an email caught
up in the impasse unbeknownst to me as the recipient and unbeknownst to the
sender which was of even life or death significance...

And for anyone who is interested gmail is not "free" (check Google's
cash/profit position). They are getting my (and your) information for free
via email and reselling it into the marketplace with a very considerable
margin. I'm willing to make that transaction in full knowledge of their
activities, but I do expect some customer service on their end of the
bargain.

And I agree with Norbert's arguments below including that I'm paying Google
to store the extra gigs of mail on my behalf... They offered me the service
and I bought it--and then they denied me access to my property at
considerable cost/damages to myself.

I think it is arguable that email is now what might be classified as both a
utility http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Public+Utilities and
an "essential service" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_services and
would, I believe under certain circumstances (war for example) be treated as
such by governments.  What that implies to me at least, is that there is the
need for regulation to ensure a minimum level of service and service
standards including in this instance a minimally acceptable and usable
"help" function.

M
 
-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Norbert Bollow
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 10:04 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Subject: Re: [governance] Blogpost: Gmail Hell Day 4: Dealing with the Borg
(Or "Being Evil" Without Really Thinking About It


McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:
> > a) The problem could be addressed by empowering end users to switch 
> > email service providers without changing their email addresses. I 
> > suggested that CCTLD operators would be able to make a category of 
> > inexpensive third-level domain names available for this.
> 
> Google and KENIC have already done this in Kenya, but I digress.
> 
> How would this alleviate a situation like M.G.s?

If Google unexpetctedly closes down his email address, or otherwise stops
providing a reasonable service, he can use a different service provider, or
set up his own mailserver, and have his email go to the new place by
updating the MX record.

For computer users with more avarage skills, maybe current off-the-shelf
software doesn't make these steps easy enough. But M.G. would have managed,
I believe.

> > b) The problem could be addressed by creating a standards-track RFC 
> > that promotes better behavior
> 
> Please specify what behavior needs to be better.

** Never close down a service without fair warning on the basis
** of actions of the user that the user could reasonably expect
** to be acceptable.

I think that if users are given several GBs worth of mailbox quota, it
should be considered normal usage to actually have several GBs of email
there.

Google representatives have pretty prominently given talks mentioning the
work of their "data liberation team" in ways that gave at least me the
expectation that at least for Google's major service offerings (this
certainly includes Gmail), one can always download one's data when desired.

So in my eyes the reasonable expectation is that one should be able to
download one's entire mailbox contents without ill effects, even if that's
several GBs of data.

If Google doesn't want that to happen without e.g. the end user explicitly
confirming "yes this is what I want to do", they could disable this
functionality in their POP server with a web interface based override.

But they let the user do it and *then* they close down the user's email
address without any warning. That I think is unacceptable.

> IIUC, user is POPing years of his gmail into outlook.  How can you 
> legislate/write an RFC about that?  If i am offering a free webmail, 
> and someone tries to POP 12 Gigs of data off it,  I'm going to have a 
> script that automagically shuts down that behavior until a human can 
> look into it!

Nota bene, they didn't just shut down "that behavior", but the email address
in its entirety.

And scripts that shut down things "until a human can look into it" are
generally only appropriate if things are organized so that someone will
actually be able to look into the matter in a timely manner. And what would
the human do? Check if it's a case of someone downloading their entire
mailbox, and then re-enable the account? In that case, what was the point of
closing it down in the first place?

Greetings,
Norbert



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