Risky Business - Using Gmail for your business!

Are you using Gmail for business purposes?  Why?

Sure, I know it’s free, but REALLY?  Remember that old adage “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”?  Nothing is free, my friend.  You’re giving up any semblance of privacy and security when you use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail or any of the other so called "free" email services.  As a business person, can you really afford that?  How about your business partners and customers?  It may be OK for aunt Martha to swap recipes with her friends using it, but it’s no way to run a business.

Besides the obvious question “If you’re such a big-time hot-shot business person, why don’t you have a professional business e-mail address?” Have you ever considered that using a free service makes you look like a cheapskate?

Let's talk about Gmail privacy - there isn't any!

Here’s the reality of Gmail privacy that’s widely acknowledged in the industry.  Gmail reads EVERY incoming and outgoing e-mail for their clients and uses that data to send targeted advertising to the sender and recipient.

In a court filing from August 13, 2013, responding to a class action lawsuit against it, Google lawyers wrote:

“All users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing.  Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient’s email provider in the course of delivery. Indeed, ‘a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.”

What does Google mean by "automated processing" and "opening"?  Apparently they believe that if anyone emails any of Gmail's 425 million users, Google has the right to opens that message and scan it and use that information to generate targeted advertising to both the sender and the recipient - even when that person is a non-Gmail user and has not agreed to Google's terms of use.  

I'll bet you didn’t know that you had an “assistant” reading your mail in order to send targeted advertising to your business associates.

Here’s another issue that should make you think long and hard about using the “free” Gmail service –

A new feature in Google Inc's Gmail will result in some users receiving messages from people with whom they have not shared their email addresses.

The change, which Google announced on January 9^th, 2014, broadens the list of contacts available to Gmail users so it includes both the email addresses of their existing contacts, as well as all of the names of people on their Google+ social network plus THEIR contacts.

What’s that mean?  If your associate has your email address in his or her address book and signs up with the Google+ social network, CONGRATULATIONS, everyone in that social group can now send you unsolicited e-mail!

Let’s talk about Gmail security for a moment -

Jose Pagliery wrote in CNNMoney on December 4, 2013 that over 70,000 Gmail and Twitter accounts were hacked a few days before and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  It’s a common occurrence for these big “free” services to get hacked simply because they are such a target rich environment with all those email addresses and address books just waiting to be scooped up by hackers.

Try this.  Type “Gmail Hacks 2013” into Google (they own Gmail) and check the results – At last count there were over 120 million results for that search term with plenty of resources to exploit that service.  There are even YouTube videos on how to hack a Gmail account.  How’s that for blatant security problems?

"Free" e-mail accounts are also some of the most commonly used places to original malware too!  Why?  Because it's so easy to sign up with a bogus name and it doesn't cost the hacker a thing.

Here’s the bottom line.  If you’re a business professional, quit exposing your associates and your clients to spam and malware and get a professional business e-mail service.  My recommendation?  Microsoft Office 365 e-mail service.   There are plenty of others too.   It’s only a few bucks a month per mailbox, will provide better security, spam control and present a much more professional business image to the people with which you correspond.

Jeff Hoffman is a network security and data protection consultant at ACT Network Solutions.  To contact him call (847) 639-7000 or via email at JHOFFMAN@ACT4NETWORKS.COM