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"CALIFORNIAN senator and former Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger will be deciding on whether Google’s Gmail should be terminated before it is even born.

While the ironies will be apparent to anyone who has seen Arnie’s Terminator trilogy, Californian senators have approved a bill that limits Google's plans to scan messages and include ads based on what it finds. Soon it will be up to the former action hero if the law will live or die.

Gmail has caused a storm in a tea-cup before it has actually been released. The scheme is still being tested by tame journalists and Google staff and is a few months away.

The normally secretive Google has said it was working with law-makers on a way to both answer privacy concerns and run a viable service. Lined up against it is Senator Liz Figueroa who introduced the bill to hobble the freedom Google had to use Gmail to sniff content.

The Bill, which now has the backing of California senators, will order Google scan messages in real time and ban it from producing records of what people are mailing each other about.

It would also ban Google from collecting personal data from Gmail messages and flogging it to other firms.

The bill now goes to California's Assembly for another round of debates and amendments. The final decision on whether it becomes law falls to Governor Arnie who can approve it or decide to terminate it."

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Source: TheInquirer