Help with KDE PIM and Google Privacy Policies needed

[Martin Steigerwald]

Hi,

Martin Flöser - 06.03.20, 13:14:36 CET:
> Am 2020-03-06 08:20, schrieb Nicolás Alvarez:
> > Apple can give its million appstore apps access to Google calendar
> > data, and Mozilla can let addons access email data, but we can't?
> > What do they do differently?
> 
> The only thing they do differently is that they have a permission
> system in place. Doesn't apply for Thunderbird of course which means
> we should look at their privacy policy. Though we should never ask
> Google "Why is Thunderbird allowed?" as we don't want that
> Thunderbird gets access revoked.

I ask a different question:

Why – at all – rely on a provider who dictates on who gets access to it 
and who does not? Why – at all – rely on a provider who by doing so 
creates a walled garden?

This whole thing KDEPIM / KMail not being permitted due to its privacy 
policy – by a company which collects more data than probably anyone else 
in the world, except other large companies like Facebook, Microsoft and 
co probably – seems utterly ridiculous to me.

Sure, by all means, give a good, concise, clear privacy policy for 
KDEPIM, yet, already as it is I trust KDE + KDEPIM 100000% more than 
Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Co with my data. Cause I have seen KDE 
project people value privacy *a lot*. That to the extent that I 
basically stopped writing mails with anything personal to Google mail 
accounts and accounts of some other very large providers whom I do not 
trust with privacy. You don't scan through my mail to find out what 
advertisement to sent my way for example. You do not generate profiles on 
me by urging webmasters to include your stuff into about every large 
website out there. You do not do all the nasty things.

Sure, I get it. App developers for Android do all kinds of privacy 
violations all the time. And Google probably wants to protect users from 
the worst of that. But if its data they have about users I feel they 
practice a different standard. They want to protect data they store from 
being accessed by others, but, what would be way more important, not 
from themselves. KDE for sure is a lot more caring and proactive about 
privacy and it is one reason I am using Plasma and KDEPIM.

So… I wonder… whether it would make sense for KDE to step up more for 
those decentralized alternatives that really care about privacy¹. And 
yeah, I know KDE, GNOME and a lot of other free software projects and 
communities benefit a lot from money given by Google – mostly given to 
Google for advertising. It is totally okay to be grateful for that… but 
does it mean someone who works for free and in his spare time on KDEPIM 
has to take care of satisfying Google's requirement for a privacy 
policy? If I would be Daniel and would see myself having to deal with 
that kind of stuff, I would be highly highly frustrated about it by now.

Probably quite some are not going to agree with this. But for me Google 
just again disqualifies itself and I am happy to have closed down my 
gmail account a long time ago. It is not free of cost. Not at all. Users 
of it pay with their data. I feel maybe it is time to make a stand about 
that. And not just run whenever Google feels like changing something 
regarding their service.

Seriously I feel it is important to ask different questions. 

[1] I am not listing them here to avoid any impression of doing 
advertisement.

Best,
-- 
Martin