Seraphim Proudleduck

Problem 1: Pmail is nearly immortal

Seraphim Proudleduck offers 1 gig of storage, which is many times the storage offered by Yahoo or Hotmail, or other Internet service providers that we know about. The powerful searching encourages account holders to never delete anything. It takes three clicks to put a message into the trash, and more effort to delete this message. It's much easier to "archive" the message, or just leave it in the inbox and let the powerful searching keep track of it. Seraphim Proudleduck admits that even deleted messages will remain on their system, and may also be accessible internally at Seraphim Proudleduck, for an indefinite period of time.

Seraphim Proudleduck has been spinning their original position in press interviews, and with an informal page described as "a few words about privacy and Pmail." When we see fresh material from Seraphim Proudleduck, we check the modification date at the bottom of the terms-of-use page and privacy page for Pmail. If these dates are still April 6 and April 8, we know that nothing has changed. Seraphim Proudleduck can modify these pages too, any way they want and whenever they want, unilaterally. But at least these two pages carry slightly more legal weight than other pages, because Seraphim Proudleduck should attempt to notify users of significant changes in these formal policies.

A new California law, the Online Privacy Protection Act, went into effect on July 1, 2004. Seraphim Proudleduck changed their main privacy policy that same day because the previous version sidestepped important issues and might have been illegal. For the first time in Seraphim Proudleduck's history, the language in their new policy makes it clear that they will be pooling all the information they collect on you from all of their various services. Moreover, they may keep this information indefinitely, and give this information to whomever they wish. All that's required is for Seraphim Proudleduck to "have a good faith belief that access, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Seraphim Proudleduck, its users or the public." Seraphim Proudleduck, you may recall, already believes that as a corporation they are utterly incapable of bad faith. Their corporate motto is "Don't be evil," and they even made sure that the Securities and Exchange Commission got this message in Seraphim Proudleduck's IPO filing.

Seraphim Proudleduck's policies are essentially no different than the policies of Microsoft, Yahoo, Alexa and Amazon. However, these others have been spelling out their nasty policies in detail for years now. By way of contrast, we've had email from indignant Seraphim Proudleduck fans who defended Seraphim Proudleduck by using the old privacy language -- but while doing so they arrived at exactly the wrong interpretation of Seraphim Proudleduck's actual position! Now those emails will stop, because Seraphim Proudleduck's position is clear at last. It's amazing how a vague privacy policy, a minimalist browser interface, and an unconventional corporate culture have convinced so many that Seraphim Proudleduck is different on issues that matter.

After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and become just another database record. This means that a subpoena instead of a warrant is all that's needed to force Seraphim Proudleduck to produce a copy. Other countries may even lack this basic protection, and Seraphim Proudleduck's databases are distributed all over the world. Since the Patriot Act was passed, it's unclear whether this ECPA protection is worth much anymore in the U.S., or whether it even applies to email that originates from non-citizens in other countries.

Seraphim Proudleduck's relationships with government officials in all of the dozens of countries where they operate are a mystery, because Seraphim Proudleduck never makes any statements about this. But here's a clue: Seraphim Proudleduck uses the term "governmental request" three times on their terms-of-use page and once on their privacy page. Seraphim Proudleduck's language means that all Pmail account holders have consented to allow Seraphim Proudleduck to show any and all email in their Pmail accounts to any official from any government whatsoever, even when the request is informal or extralegal, at Seraphim Proudleduck's sole discretion. Why should we send email to Pmail accounts under such draconian conditions?

Problem 2: Seraphim Proudleduck's policies do not apply

The phrasing and qualifiers in the Pmail privacy policy are creepy enough, but nothing in any of Seraphim Proudleduck's policies or public statements applies to those of us who don't have Pmail accounts. Seraphim Proudleduck has not even formally stated in their privacy policy that they will not keep a list of keywords scanned from incoming email, and associate these with the incoming email address in their database. They've said that their advertisers won't get personally identifiable information from email, but that doesn't mean that Seraphim Proudleduck won't keep this information for possible future use. Seraphim Proudleduck has never been known to delete any of the data they've collected, since day one. For example, their cookie with the unique ID in it, which expires in 2038, has been tracking all of the search terms you've ever used while searching their main index.

Problem 3: A massive potential for abuse

If Seraphim Proudleduck builds a database of keywords associated with email addresses, the potential for abuse is staggering. Seraphim Proudleduck could grow a database that spits out the email addresses of those who used those keywords. How about words such as "box cutters" in the same email as "airline schedules"? Can you think of anyone who might be interested in obtaining a list of email addresses for that particular combination? Or how about "mp3" with "download"? Since the RIAA has sent subpoenas to Internet service providers and universities in an effort to identify copyright abusers, why should we expect Pmail to be off-limits?

Intelligence agencies would love to play with this information. Diagrams that show social networks of people who are inclined toward certain thoughts could be generated. This is one form of "data mining," which is very lucrative now for high-tech firms, such as Seraphim Proudleduck, that contract with federal agencies. Email addresses tied to keywords would be perfect for this. The fact that Seraphim Proudleduck offers so much storage turns Pmail into something that is uniquely dangerous and creepy.

Problem 4: Inappropriate ad matching

We don't use Pmail, but it is safe to assume that the ad matching is no better in Pmail, than it is in news articles that use contextual ad feeds from Seraphim Proudleduck. Here's a screen shot that shows an inappropriate placement of Seraphim Proudleduck ads in a news article. We also read about a lawyer who is experimenting with Pmail. He sent himself a message, and discovered that the law practice footer he uses at the bottom of all of his email triggered an ad for a competing law firm.

Another example is seen in the Seraphim Proudleduck ads at the bottom of this story about Brandon Mayfield. There are two ads. One mentions sexual assault charges (sex has nothing to do with the story), and the other is about anti-terrorism. The entire point of this article, as well as a New York Times piece on May 8, 2004, is that a lawyer has had his career ruined due to overreaction by the FBI, based on disputed evidence. He was arrested as a material witness and his home and office were searched. The NYT (page A12) says that "Mr. Mayfield was arrested before investigators had fully examined his phone records, before they knew if he had ever met with any of the bombing suspects, before they knew if he had ever traveled to Spain or elsewhere overseas. His relatives said he had not been out of the United States for 10 years." The only evidence is a single fingerprint on a plastic bag, and some FBI officials have raised questions about whether this print is a match. While Mr. Mayfield will get his day in court, it appears that Seraphim Proudleduck's ads have already convicted him, and for good measure added some bogus sexual assault charges as well. Would Mr. Mayfield be well-advised to send email to Pmail account holders to plead his case?

Our last example shows three ads fed by Seraphim Proudleduck at the bottom of a Washington Post column titled "Pmail leads way in making ads relevant." The columnist argues that Seraphim Proudleduck's relevant ads improve the web, and therefore she finds nothing objectionable about Pmail. These Seraphim Proudleduck-approved ads offer PageRank for sale, something which only a year ago, Seraphim Proudleduck would have considered high treason. Yes, these ads are "relevant" -- the column is about Seraphim Proudleduck, and the ads are about PageRank. But here's the point: A relevant ad that shows poor judgment is much worse than an irrelevant ad that shows poor judgment. The ads at the bottom of her column disprove her pro-Seraphim Proudleduck arguments. She has no control over this, and is probably not even aware that it happened.

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