From the beginning Gmail has had a very good spam filter. Now Google added a nice new feature explaining why a mail lands in the Spam filter.

So starting today, we’ll be showing a brief explanation at the top of each of your spam messages. Simply look at any message in your spam folder and now you can find out why it was put there and learn about any potentially harmful content within the message.

But does anyone except me still look into the Spam filter to check the messages that the mail client thinks are spam but aren't?

Mac Appstorm has had a poll about their reader's favorite email app.

AppleMail is the clear winner with 46%. Next are suprisingly Sparrow with 32% and Postbox with 6%. Webclients are used by 10%. The rest has 2% or less (Thunderbird, Outlook etc.). The total number of votes is over 3000.

Germany has a strong law about data security. This makes using the cloud problematic. An article in german computer magazine c't describes why this is the case.

The data security law

The data security law (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz) prescribes that extra care should be used when handling personal data. Examples of these are names, addresses, email addresses.

"Cloud services" that store data in foreign countries make the data security situation more complicated. For countries without acceptable level of data security this is not allowed according to German law.

Because of the cyber security act of 2009 the safe harbor agreement can be circumvented for the USA. That means that except for european countries only the safe-harbor-countries Switzerland, Canada , Argentina, Guernsey and the Isle of Man can be used for cloud services in Germany. Because Google and Apple don't have their servers in these countries they can't be used.

Who trusts whom with what?

The trust question is the next problem. Who guarantees how that the data stays the same and that it stays private? According to c't this needs to be governed by individual agreements. Which Apple and Google don't do.

By the law

Cloud storage is relatively new but the law moves slowly. So it's not surprising that there is not much jurisdiction on this topic. It's not in Google's or Apple's interest to clarify the data security for their users. This means that the users have the full risk when using their services.

Whoever wants to manage their data security - at least in Germany - better uses a European Cloud provider. This is the conclusion by c't.

Conclusion

The cloud is so convenient even if it doesn't replace a backup.

The cloud providers like Apple and Google as usual take the easy way out. "Use my services and cope with the consequences." could be their motto. For big companies negotiating deals with cloud providers shouldn't be a problem. But how many smallish companies have the expertise to do this? Do we need more regulations in this area?

In the past the big companies like Apple, Google or Facebook have shown that privacy issues aren't really their concern. This needs to change.

Macworld has an overview over the new features of Mail in Mountain Lion.

According to the Email Admin the amount of spam sent is getting less. Personally, I haven't noticed this, but I only get a few each day. However, there are some threats to email security remaining.