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Rogers has outsourced its e-mail service to Yahoo for several years. Yahoo and AOL have since been merged to create Oath, which analyzes e-mails, photos and attachments "when you use our services." It states that "This allows us to deliver, personalize and develop relevant features, content, advertising and services."Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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Privacy, very invaded

After reading Christine Dobby’s article about Rogers’s invasive e-mail terms-of-service changes, I attempted to “adjust [my] customer preferences and settings” as the Rogers spokesperson you quoted suggested (Rogers E-Mail Users Hit With New Service Terms That Allow Data Monitoring, April 20). No way could I manage to find out how to do this, even after several Internet searches. I did, however, find this appalling item in the terms of service for Oath, the company to which Rogers has outsourced its e-mail service:

“Personal Data of Friends and Contacts. By using the Services, you agree that you have obtained the consent of your friends and contacts to provide their personal information (for example: their email address or telephone number) to Oath or a third party, as applicable, and that Oath or a third party may use your name to send messages on your behalf to make the Services available to your friends and contacts …”

Daring to send messages on my behalf to my friends and contacts? This is an incredible invasion of privacy that should never be permitted. How can we fight back against this kind of intrusion?

Jacques Soucie, Newmarket, Ont.

Democracy’s bargain

Re: Privacy Laws Should Apply To Parties, Too (editorial, April 19): There may be solutions to narrowly targeted advertising and the ubiquity of fake news, but there is no answer to “emotional appeal” (your words) or basic human stupidity (mine).

Some Democratic voters actually believed Hillary Clinton approved arms sales to ISIS, or that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump?!!

The problem isn’t only Facebook or the Russian-funded Internet Research Agency, it’s a dearth of critical thinking skills and media literacy. This is the fundamental and unfortunate bargain of democracy: Age and citizenship are the only qualifiers for voter eligibility; general knowledge, engagement and open-mindedness are all up for grabs.

Brian P.H. Green, Thunder Bay, Ont.

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I don’t think that it is quite right to argue Facebook is a biased media platform. The only real bias that Facebook has is purely commercial – to make money out of advertising. However, it facilitates an endless number of highly biased media platforms, defined by the circle of “friends,” perhaps largely like-minded on a variety of issues, the so-called echo chambers.

Electoral studies tell us a key concern of political parties is not so much persuading undecided voters to fall in line with their policies, but to ensure that decided voters do indeed turn up at the ballot box. For example, there’s a Trump-support cohort that will vote for him, or for politicians who support him, or against those who oppose him, regardless of his performance as President.

Boudewyn van Oort, Victoria

Canada’s oil workers

Re To The Oil Workers Of Alberta: We Care About You ( April 20): My thanks to Denise Balkissoon for showing some humanity in this national debate. What I think is largely missing from the national discussion is a look at what is driving oil production, and that is the demand side of the market.

Shutting in one barrel of oil from Canada doesn’t lessen the amount consumed by one barrel, it just lessens the amount produced by one of the world’s most highly regulated, above-the-table oil markets and replaces it with oil from markets such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Nigeria. I struggle to believe that, like here, many petro dollars from those barrels make their way back to studying ways to tackle climate change.

Blair McDermid, Calgary

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Rachel Notley asks us to look an unemployed Albertan in the eyes to find compassion, but we all need to look our own children in the eyes, too, no matter where we live. On balance, when I listen to what scientists tell us they will face in their lifetimes, those needs are sadly more compelling. Many signatories to the Paris climate accord are well on their way to meeting their commitment to transition from fossil-fuelled economies. Canada isn’t. More pipeline capacity won’t fix Alberta’s boom-bust economy, and it’s an unbearable betrayal of our kids.

Jill Thompson, Duncan B.C.

Explain what’s ethical

Re China’s Envoy Assails Canada’s ‘Immoral’ Concerns Over Takeovers (April 19): Before China’s ambassador lectures Canadians again about their “immoral” attitude toward takeovers by Chinese companies of Canadian businesses, it would be helpful if he could educate us about what China considers ethical business practices.

Could he help us understand the massive stock fraud in Canada by Chinese-listed Sino Forest products? Perhaps, he could explain the reason Canadian taxpayers are paying to clean up the mess from Chinese-listed companies that walked away from their Alberta oil patch properties?

Money laundering in the Vancouver property market? Especially helpful would be an explanation of how China justifies persistent corporate theft of intellectual property.

It would also be great to get some explanation from our Canadian politicians as to how they can sit through such a lecture in silence.

Gail Hill, Nanaimo, B.C.

Bear and beaver

Re Why Is Canada Angering The Russian Bear? (April 19): “NATO’s expansion right up to Russia’s borders is a provocation no Russian president could accept,” writes Konrad Yakabuski.

Indeed … how dare Eastern Europeans try to behave like independent countries and sign treaties without Russian approval?

Canada should accept that these people are only as free as Vladimir Putin wants them to be?

Adam Waiser, Markham, Ont.

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German leaders from various parties are trying to improve relations with Russia, where Germany has extensive trade interests. Meanwhile, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, urged on by Foreign Affairs Minster Chrystia Freeland, is in Cold War mode with Russia.

Military leaders from NATO and Russia are meeting to lower tensions, as cooler heads start to prevail.

Canada will be left out of the loop because the Prime Minister and his government lack foresight and a grasp of realpolitik. Canada is located on the map between two behemoths. Russia, too, is Canada’s neighbour – and it is always good to be neighbourly.

Alan Tapper, Vancouver

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It is not “diaspora politics” that raises legitimate fear of Russian foreign policy and behaviour. It is Russia’s international vandalism. Poisonings in England, its actions in Ukraine and Syria, threatening the Baltics, even attacking the democratic process in the last U.S. election with smirking impunity.

NATO membership in Eastern Europe is a legitimate means of protection from Russia. One wonders why the world’s largest country needs yet more real estate (Crimea) or control over its neighbours to feel safe. Last I saw, no one on its margins is planning to invade. Canada is absolutely right not to cozy up to Russia.

Ron Beram, White Rock, B.C.

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