Help with KDE PIM and Google Privacy Policies needed

[Philippe Cloutier]

Hi Martin,

Le 2020-03-06 à 09:26, Martin Steigerwald a écrit :
> 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?


No. I think KDEPIM could show a proper explanation if it has an 
incompatibility. But it is not clear what is the context for the issue 
discussed in this thread.


> [...]
>
> Best,

-- 
Philippe Cloutier
http://www.philippecloutier.com