Google said a year ago it would stop its computers from scanning the inboxes of Gmail users for information to personalize advertisements, saying it wanted users to “remain confident that Google will keep privacy and security paramount.”
Alphabet Inc. (GOOG)旗下谷歌(Google)一年前曾表示，将停止以提供个性化广告为目的让其电脑通过扫描Gmail用户的收件箱来获取信息，并表示，希望用户继续对谷歌的隐私和安全至上原则抱有信心。
But the internet giant continues to let hundreds of outside software developers scan the inboxes of millions of Gmail users who signed up for email-based services offering shopping price comparisons, automated travel-itinerary planners or other tools. Google does little to police those developers, who train their computers—and, in some cases, employees—to read their users’ emails, a Wall Street Journal examination has found.
但这家互联网巨头仍在允许数以百计的外部软件开发者扫描大量Gmail用户收件箱，这些用户注册了基于电子邮件的各类服务，包括提供购物价格比较、自动旅行日程安排或其他工具。《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)的一项调查发现，这些软件开发者对电脑（或在某些情况下对员工）进行培训，学习如何阅读用户的电子邮件，而谷歌几乎没有采取行动加以监督。
One of those companies is Return Path Inc., which collects data for marketers by scanning the inboxes of more than two million people who have signed up for one of the free apps in Return Path’s partner network using a Gmail, Microsoft Corp. or Yahoo email address. Computers normally do the scanning, analyzing about 100 million emails a day. At one point about two years ago, Return Path employees read about 8,000 unredacted emails to help train the company’s software, people familiar with the episode say.
其中一家软件开发公司是Return Path Inc.，该公司扫描200多万人的收件箱为市场人员收集数据，这些用户均使用Gmail、微软(Microsoft Co., MSFT)或雅虎(Yahoo! Inc., YHOO)的电邮地址在Return Path的合作网络上注册了某项免费应用。扫描工作通常由计算机来完成，每天分析大约1亿封电子邮件。知情人士称，大约两年前，Return Path的员工曾阅读大约8,000封未编辑过的电子邮件，旨在帮助完善该公司的软件。
In another case, employees of Edison Software, another Gmail developer that makes a mobile app for reading and organizing email, personally reviewed the emails of hundreds of users to build a new feature, says Mikael Berner, the company’s CEO.
另一家Gmail相关开发商Edison Software的首席执行长Mikael Berner表示，为打造一项新功能，该公司的员工浏览了数百个用户的电子邮件。Edison Software开发阅读和整理电子邮件的移动应用。
Letting employees read user emails has become “common practice” for companies that collect this type of data, says Thede Loder, the former chief technology officer at eDataSource Inc., a rival to Return Path. He says engineers at eDataSource occasionally reviewed emails when building and improving software algorithms.
eDataSource Inc.的前首席技术长Thede Loder表示，让员工阅读用户的电子邮件已成为收集此类数据的公司的常规做法。eDataSource Inc.是Return Path的竞争对手。 Loder称，eDataSource的工程师在开发和改进软件算法时偶尔会看用户的邮件。
“Some people might consider that to be a dirty secret,” says Mr. Loder. “It’s kind of reality.”
Loder表示：“一些人可能会认为这是不可告人的秘密。某种意义上而言这就是现实。”
Neither Return Path nor Edison asked users specifically whether it could read their emails. Both companies say the practice is covered by their user agreements, and that they used strict protocols for the employees who read emails. eDataSource says it previously allowed employees to read some email data but recently ended that practice to better protect user privacy.
Return Path和Edison都未专门询问过用户是否可以阅读他们的邮件。这两家公司表示，它们的用户协议中有针对该做法的条款，且它们用严格的规则对阅读邮件的员工进行约束。eDataSource表示，该公司之前允许员工阅读某些邮件数据，但为了更好地保护用户隐私，最近已终止了这一做法。
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., GOOGL +1.98% says it provides data only to outside developers it has vetted and to whom users have explicitly granted permission to access email. Google’s own employees read emails only “in very specific cases where you ask us to and give consent, or where we need to for security purposes, such as investigating a bug or abuse,” the company said in a written statement.
Alphabet旗下子公司谷歌表示，只将数据提供给该公司已经审查过的外部开发公司，并且对于这些机构用户已明确授予访问其电子邮件权限。谷歌在一份书面声明中表示，该公司自己的员工只在非常特殊的情况下才阅读用户的电子邮件，例如用户提出这样的要求并予以同意，或者公司出于调查漏洞或滥用行为等安全目的需要阅读电子邮件。
This examination of email data privacy is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former employees of email app makers and data companies. The latitude outside developers have in handling user data shows how even as Google and other tech giants have touted efforts to tighten privacy, they have left the door open to others with different oversight practices.
此次对电子邮件隐私的调查是基于对电子邮件应用开发公司和数据公司的20多名在职和离职雇员的采访。外部开发公司在处理用户数据时的自由度表明，尽管谷歌和其他科技巨头已宣称采取措施加强隐私保护，但却为其他一些采用不同监督做法的公司敞开了大门。