Travel Technology - What do people think of Gmail?

Anyone get an account yet?

Not yet, but I am really looking forward to. I'm signing up the minute the open up the service to everyone! :)

I'll bite...what's Gmail?

Link?

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/about.html

So far only in private testing phase, but Google intends to make available free email accounts with 1GB of storage space each. The tradeoff is you will see targeted text ads (like Google search, those little ads on the right side) as you read your email. This has raised some privacy issues, as obviously they will need to scan the text of your mailbox in order to find keywords. Personally, I don't see why the privacy advocates are yelling. They are making very clear what will happen here, and if people are willing to trade this bit of invasion for 1GB of free email storage, why not?

The Register has a very good take on what the personal privacy implications are.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/36778.html

I would make an estimate and say there are at least 4 or 5 ways that electronic mail can be snagged by law enforcement or other groups that wished to do so. They simply dont need Google to do this. If you dont want someone to know about it there are ways to minimize those issues such as encryption, rereouting, etc. A firewall and appropriate software will improve privacy and how you interact with cookies. However, if you dont want someone to know about something, it probably isnt a good idea to put it on the web. Anyone who sends or receives email probably should, but doesnt have an expectation of privacy. This doesnt change that. It just makes it free.

I see the points (see also http://www.google-watch.org/ if you like), but in the end I think the truth is more like GadgetFreak's remarks above. If someone wants to be tracking us, they can do it. Assuming Google were to link our search history with our identity (not publicly but in their records) as suggest in The Register, it would make for an interesting dossier on such users I suppose. So you could say it might make the surveilance job a bit easier assuming those doing the looking are able to get that info from Google. That's all it does, though, makes it a little easier. It's not like any of this is impossible now.

Just run PGP, and drive the adware on Gmail nuts.....

If this comes to life I suspect it will have to ability to overtake Hotmail.

But then again, Hotmail can easily add storage for free as well...

One of the major limitations on Hotmail is storage and amount of free emails a day...

Just run PGP, and drive the adware on Gmail nuts.....

Or even more fun, encode your messages with Spammimic (http://www.spammimic.com/) :D

FewMiles..

I'm looking forward to getting a gmail account. I'm not sure if it will overtake hotmail as my primary personal email address though (I've had the address for too long).

As for privacy issues, as long as google are up front in terms of what their policies are then no one (and I really do mean no one) should have any cause to complain.

As to those who've suggested encryption, I don't generally recommend this as it only draws attention to the fact that you've got something to hide.

Looking forward to it to replace my Hotmail account. If they actually have good Spam filter, I may let it replace my main account as well.

While I understand people's concerns about privacy, it's worthwhile to keep in mind that flagging email for ads -- as gmail intends to do -- doesn't really require any more invasion of privacy than Hotmail and Yahoo's spam filters.

My concern would be to make sure that Google's privacy policy strictly limits what they -- or any company that might acquire them -- can do with the data they collect.

d.

I back gadgetfreak. Anything you send out over e-mail/web or any form of Internet goes into a _public_ area. It's easy to catch any/all of it (not just 4-5 ways).

Every interaction you make is broken into packets which pass through 10s-20s of relays on its way to its final destination. Every relay site and every connection is a potential point of capture.

I don't stress about it.

I'll certainly give it a shot, though this line did bother me a bit (but who cares if anybody reads my e-mail?)

Google plans to support the service by serving related ads on Web pages displaying e-mail. It will scan the content of e-mail messages to serve up targeted ads.

I'll certainly give it a shot, though this line did bother me a bit (but who cares if anybody reads my e-mail?)

Google plans to support the service by serving related ads on Web pages displaying e-mail. It will scan the content of e-mail messages to serve up targeted ads.

If your mail is currently goes through server-side anti-virus scanning or anti-spam scanning, the process is the same as the scanning for keywords.

I think that Google has all the caveats in there about "your mail might not be deleted, even when you think it is", is essentially anti-litigation language, not some dark plot to keep all of your email.

Further, if you really have deep privacy concerns, you can simply vote with your feet and not sign up for the service.