Privacy International's Big Brother awards highlight organisations that the organisers say pose a significant threat to privacy.
Gmail, currently available to a limited number of users for beta testing, has been criticised by privacy groups for scanning emails and then attempting to add relevant contexual ads.
Google is "a potential winner", particularly as it has resisted discussion with pressure groups such as Privacy International, according to Simon Davies, director of Privacy International.
"Any attempts we have made to meet Google have been rebuffed," said Davies. He expressed concerns that other email providers were likely to follow Google's lead.
Last year's award winners included Ken Livingstone for his role in increasing transport surveillance, and Capita for its role in government surveillance and data management schemes.
The awards ceremony, featuring the comedian Mark Thomas and other special guests, will be open to the public for the first time, in a bid to attract more popular support. There are 1,000 places available free of charge to anyone interested.
"We are trying to change the awards from being an insiders' event -- involving civil liberties organisations, inside-track politicians and friends, to involving a more diverse group of people," said Davies.
Davies accepted that it is difficult to change the way that organisations behave, and that indeed the awards have sometimes had a negative effect in terms of "creating opportunities for slick PR" by giving award winners valuable publicity for their activities. He is now hoping that Privacy International will be able to shift its focus from activism to providing useful information on privacy issues.
To reserve your seat at the Big Brother Awards on 28 July at 7pm, email simon@privacy.org.
Talkback
Don't be ridiculous. You should read THE FACTS before you start spewing "gmail is reading your email" crap.
THE FACTS: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/more.html
Simon Davies is right to challenge this. While GMail is correct that a human is not reading the e-mail, the move nevertheless helps us further down the road of automated scanning that a number of people believe is a threat to their privacy. If GMail were to expand their policy to detecting criminal activity (and in the US right now they would likely be actively encouraged: there's a war on terrorism, don't you know?) then certain keyword combinations could well be helpfully notified to the authorities.
This is not wild paranoia. Recently a tribute band member in the UK, who innocently referred to a "gun" and a "jet airliner" in a text message, was arrested as he was leaving work (www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/03/text_punk/).
It is bad enough that e-mail is routinely scanned by surveillance powers (rather than being selected individually for scanning after a court order is obtained); we don't want private firms getting in on the act too.
Your earlier correspondent Shaun may not feel that GMail is a threat to his freedom. Accordingly, he is welcome to use the service if he wants to; privacy is a relative and very individual measure. However I won't be using the service, nor will I be e-mailing anyone who contacts me on it, either.
We have the technology available now to encrypt all of our e-mail communications. I think it is time we started doing this en masse, rather than leaving the door open for increasingly invasive automated processes to scan our messages for meaning and context. It is worth noting that it might be only five or ten years before machines can 'understand' written language completely, which further underscores the need for a basic level of encryption.
That all said, with Home Secretary David 'Big' Blunkett still pushing his authoritarian utopias (ID card, population database, biometrics, dismantling of trial by jury, on-the-spot fines etc) I think GMail will have some stiff competition for the Big Brother awards this year.
i love watching big brother its a great tv show my fave house mates are imigon,mikey,pete and nicky my least fave house mates are lea,suzie and RICHARD how dare he insult welsh i hate him he is a wannabe fake gay man get rid of him hes out of order and thinks he is somthing he is not!
my idears for big brother are to get a trampoline in the house! and have some more fun interesting tasks to be done maybe next year you can invent a childrens big brother i would love to be on there! thanks for listioning!