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<DIV>--Judge Orders Google to Deactivate Account<BR>(September 24 & 28,
2009)<BR>A US District Court Judge in California has ordered Google to
deactivate<BR>the Gmail account of a user who was accidentally sent confidential
bank<BR>information. An employee of Wyoming-based Rocky Mountain Bank sent
the<BR>data to the account in error; the data include names, Social
Security<BR>Numbers (SSNs) and loan information of more than 1,300 bank
customers.<BR>Upon recognizing the mistake, the bank sent another email to the
same<BR>address, requesting that the recipient destroy the previous email
and<BR>contact Rocky Mountain Bank. After receiving no reply, the bank
asked<BR>Google for information about the account holder. Google said that
it<BR>would not surrender any information without a court order. The
judge's<BR>order is controversial because it appears to violate the
account<BR>holder's First Amendment rights. Additionally, deactivating
an<BR>individual's Gmail account could have far-reaching effects.<BR><A
href="mhtml:{FDC208C8-11D2-4AA4-904E-C9A892CD0D3E}mid://00000161/!x-usc:http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=114264">http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=114264</A><BR><A
href="mhtml:{FDC208C8-11D2-4AA4-904E-C9A892CD0D3E}mid://00000161/!x-usc:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/28/google_rocky_mountain_bank_suit_rollls_on/">http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/28/google_rocky_mountain_bank_suit_rollls_on/</A><BR>[Editor's
Note (Northcutt): I had to read this, drink a cup of hot tea,<BR>and read it
again to comprehend how significant this case is. Please<BR>take the time to
read the story. There are a couple of issues here. One<BR>is that the legal
system follows technology by some number of years.<BR>Looking backward five
years, you can sort of see Judge Ware's point of<BR>view, "It is just an email
account, the person can get another one."<BR>Looking forward two or three years,
in the words of Charlene Li, "In the<BR>future, two pieces of information will
identify you, your email address<BR>and your mobile phone number". Bottom line,
Judge Ware made a bad call.]<BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>