Gmail Commentary and Responses 290
Phil Windley writes "In his inimitable style, Tim O'Reilly tells us why GMail matters. The piece is entitled, 'The Fuss About GMail' but that doesn't begin to properly identify the real meat of what Tim's saying. Tim does discuss some of the privacy concerns on GMail and why he's not concerned, but he also breaks new ground on why GMail is not just another free email system. For example, Tim talks about how GMail might herald an era of large centralized computing and calls for APIs to allow GMail content to be move back and forth between it and other systems." Reader chris mansley writes "Google is quietly responding all the flak being given to their new email service. They have added a statement to quell the growing list of concerns. No more keeping email forever is at the top of the list. The reviews have been sparse on details and screenshots, but now Google is providing a sneak peek here and here." The only thing I didn't like about Gmail was their apparent intention to keep your mail forever, regardless of your wishes. Since they've now clarified that they don't plan to do that, it doesn't seem like there's much of a problem any more. Yahoo and MSN already link your searches on their respective engines with your account profiles on their respective free email services, and no one seems to care (maybe because no one uses MSN or Yahoo as a search engine these days, but still).
We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, if you're sane, you trust Google because if they really wanted to screw the world over, they simply could decide that since their search engine is so good, everybody needs to pay $25 a month to keep accessing it... or decide to start logging all search queries to a user-specific cookie... or just take their bat and ball and go home. They've already got enough power to mess with us even worse than Gmail could be, and they've yet to be caught abusing any of that power or going back on their word.
That's how trust is really built... by letting them have the ability to screw up and seeing that they don't manage to do so. I'd certainly trust my e-mail with Google more so than I'd trust some of the other major "free e-mail" services out there.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Interesting)
Paranoia says "of course they do." Trust says "We think they don't."
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Insightful)
*shrug*
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Informative)
There's a tin-foil type site called Google Watch [google-watch.org] with a bunch of information about Google.
As I said in the grand-parent, I'm a larger-than-average fan of Google, so I believe most of the claims on the site are a bunch of paranoid rantings, but they do raise legitimate points about possibilities.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Informative)
Basically the google watch guy is just pissed off that google didn't give him the page rank he thought he deserved. I've read google-watch and most of it is FUD
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:4, Informative)
Surely it couldn't be because they're using a large number of 32-bit UNIX-like systems, and that there's the UNIX [gsp.com] epoch [wikipedia.org] in all UNIX-like OSes on 32-bit systems is 2038.
I mean, that'd just be kha-raaaaaaazie!1! It's obvious that they set the cookie to 2036 so they could steal our Precious Bodily Fluids. Where's the tin foil? Where?
Err. Yah. Yah, at that point I think it's safe to say anything on the site can be honestly diregarded as bunk. Or at best poorly writen SciFi. Either way, it's relationship with reality is on the rocks, and reality is already calling it's mother and a divorce laywer.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Interesting)
That claim is quite obviously intended as sarcasm. It mocks the following Craig Silverstein quote:
Then the site goes on to ask (for the truly daft, this is where the sarcasm comes in):
It's nothing like what you are sugg
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, you did not literally spread FUD -- just information, but I believe that now, while Google is inexplicably under attack - perhaps by those who could know better - we need to actively defend Google as the epitome of what companies on the internet can be.
If you read the link from the story and understand it, you'll know that you have nothing to worry about: Google's software is parsing your messages as you open them for keywords so they can show you ads. This is something their search engine does already, and, as far as I know, nobody has been traced and arrested via their cookie because they looked up "nude kids" or "dirty bomb diagrams." And if you're really paranoid, just turn off cookies: they aren't mandated. Every site that uses cookies gives you a "unique user id." If you want to whinge about "unique user IDs," we can talk about social security numbers or palladium hardware IDs or the Passport service.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a lot of search engines out there, and while Google is currently at the top of the list, nobody stays there forever. I can remember a time when Netscape was on top [I hear jwz in my head: shut up!
I'm just a lowly coder. I'm not enough of a visionary to know who will be on top in a year. I hope it's Google, but I'm entirely prepared for it to be Amazon [a9.com] or Altavista [altavista.com] (again; has anybody noticed their recent changes?) or some brilliant kids from some community college somewhere who have nothing but a hosting account and some algorithms that will change the world.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, if Google betrays the trust customers have in it and therefore is no longer trusted, the company won't be worth as much.
Does SCO have any goodwill left? Doesn't look like it, and that's part of the reason major investor seems to be trying to cash out chips...
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Informative)
Everything I've read says that Google is not selling anything close to 50% of the company. They would still be privately controlled by the same people who have been running it all this time.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:4, Interesting)
One example. Google sells 30% of the company. Some guy (Bill Gates for example) comes along and offers 6 times the current share price for Google stock in an acquisition deal. For that kind of return for their shareholders, Google's board cannot ignore the offer and tell Bill to go away. Google's majority owners may end up not voting to sell, but their time, the time of the board, corporate officers, etc. would be eaten up having to deal with this.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a lot of negative Gmail press out there.
Too much negative press even.
Are we looking at Microsoft/Yahoo/Others putting a lot of effort into making sure these criticisms make the news?
I'm no Linux fan-boy (I use and appreciate Microsoft software), but I wouldn't put efforts such as those past any company who had a financial interest in the development or lack of it. And because of that, I'd be inclined to give Google a bit more benefit of the doubt here.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Google does not send any email content or other personally identifiable information to advertisers.
What about everybody that's not an advertiser?
2. No humans read any Gmail messages to target advertising or related information that users may see on Gmail.
What about non-humans? I'm assuming computers do "read" every single email that goes through gmail and computers can do a lot more than relate email content to ads.
3. Gmail only shows unobtrusive, targe
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Insightful)
Was that supposed to be insightful? Do you get regular updates from google about what i've been searching for recently? I just don't see what you're getting at. Sure google could be forced to turn private information over to the government, but so could any company. All that means is that the US gov has some major privacy concerns to address.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the Millenium copyright laws: Google takes down copyrignted content as soon as someone sends them an email telling them it infringes. They have to, it's the law. The Church of Scientology uses those provisions frequently.
Do you trust Google to treat your confidential data more seriously than their own survival? Why should you? Ashcroft or the FBI can ask google to hand over any ("terrorism related") information they like, and Google has to comply. It *has* to comply, whether they want to or not.
That's why Google can't be trusted with my personal information. Not because Google could turn out to be bad guys later, but because to be law abiding, they have to give up my data if asked. At least if I keep my data on my own servers, it's harder to access.
Remember, Google is *the* search king. They can't turn to the FBI and tell them "look, you can't do searches across all email account holders' archives, because it's too technically difficult". Instead, the FBI will say "do a search for "bin laden" across all your email archives, and give us the owner's addresses. And they'll comply, not because Google are the bad guys, but because Google are the *good* guys.
No thanks.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't had mod points since December (despite two years and 1204 comments).
But if I did have mod points, mine would go to the parent.
So should yours.
Putting all your eggs in one basket, as the cliche notes, is bad policy.
Putting all your information in the hands of one company invites extensive profiling of you.
It may even be that Google respects your privacy;
it may even be that GW Bush is voted out of office and Ashcroft (slighty NSFW) with him, and contrary to any realistic possibility, the Democratic Party gets rid of [pmbrowser.info] Howard Berman [digitalspeech.org] is defeated in the Democratic Primary and Fritz Hollings [yale.edu] retires and the DMCA is repealed and no future Herbert Hoover ever leads the FBI into another COINTELPRO [wikipedia.org];
and it may even be that lions lie down with lambs and meat packers lie down with cows.
But even in such a perfect world, it would take one disgruntled Google employee or one corporate spy or one hacker to make all your data public.
The question isn't "is Google trustworthy"; the question is, given that you backup your data for the day your hard drive inevitably dies, given that you use an UPS because you know that even the best power company has blackouts, why you rush to put all your data in any one set of hands?
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:2)
I plead a late night and a good Hefeweizen. Of course that should be J. Edgar Hoover, and yes, I didn't close an anchor tag soon enough either.
As recompense, I'll point you to a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony that sounds a lot like "ambient" music [notam02.no] (scroll down for mp3s, avoid the Real Crappy Player stuff up top), because it's been s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out to last for twenty-four continuous hours [swipnet.se]. It's uncanny, especially compar
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't trust Google to break the law, then presumably you don't trust any company. This is an argument that's based on the foundation of all email services abiding by US law, not one specific to Gmail. I'm not entirely sure you realize this.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Interesting)
But how often will they be asked to hand over their records? If it's a small ISP, then this won't happen frequently. If they're a large ISP, then it could happen more frequently. My data there would be searched incidentally, because it's much easier to search everybody than search a few specific people.
If they're a really big email provider, like MSN, AOL, Y
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:2)
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Funny)
Ashcroft is a conservative, he'll never think of touching the 2nd amendment.
LK
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Offtopic)
This is more true than you probably realise. During the investigations into 9/11, Ashcroft banned the FBI from searching gun purchase files to see if any of the suspects had purchased weapons in the previous months [New York Times, December 6, 2001]. Considering the contempt Ashcroft has shown for the other nine ammendments, his enthisiasm for protecting the second is a little disturbing IMO.
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:2, Interesting)
With Gmail they could take things to a whole new level without having to break their privacy policy. Imagin having Gmail scanning every e-mail you read (hey, it's just a computer trying to deliver targeted ads) and slowly developing a personal profile with this information and your search query. That's quite a bit of powerful information that google could abuse without you ever knowing about.
Say you buy a fe
Trust Nobody? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then what the hell are you doing signing up to use a Free email service, or for that matter being on the internet to begin with?
If you do not trust google, then you really shouldn't trust hotmail or yahoo either.
Re:Trust Nobody? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you'd best start by looking at your ISP, who have the ability (technically) to read your unencrypted webmail (yahoo, hotmail etc) as well as your real email account (typically unencrypted POP), plus being able to record the google searches you do, the slashdot comments you post, and able to tie this all to detailed information on your name, address, bank details and phone number.
In the UK, you can use data-protection act to request all such information they
Re:We trust Google.... don't we. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not saying I disagree, but you gloss right over two points:
Don't care about privacy (Score:4, Funny)
Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:5, Interesting)
Google right now faces a huge issue: "spam" websites designed to bomb it's search engine.
The one common thing about all spam emails is that they have a link to a product page [unless they're *scam* emails, a completely different thing]. Google can use algorithms on mail that gets marked and checked as spam to nerf the page rankings of those webpages.
Why is this important? Because it gives people a free service, gives google advertising money, and has a huge benefit to the search engine.
The best filtering "algorithm" is 5 million users doing your filtering for you. Google doesn't have that right now, because they don't ask anyone to rate their web results. Google stands to gain a huge statistical advantage by incorportating email into their services.
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:3)
I never even thought of that. If they do set it up that way I will definately be dropping my three yahoo accounts and signing up for three GMail ones.
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:2, Interesting)
Plus, as you said, all the mail/web domains Google could harvest... Though I'm not sure I want them to index that hot new 0-day-fetish-pr0n link some friend sent me. *cough*
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:4, Insightful)
Have a gripe with Slashdot? Spam a few billion Gmail users with a link to slashdot, and wham. Instant PageRank death.
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:3, Informative)
Because slashdot.org has nothing to do with viagra, it wouldn't nerf the pagerank of some spammer who cleverly inserted slashdot at the bottom of his viagra spam.
If someone did put slashdot in a spam email with lots of things about news for nerds, the spam filter wouldn't pick it up - because most people wouldn't have things like that labeled as spam.
Plus, with all the data google will be collecting, goog
CORRECTION TO PARENT (Score:2)
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:3, Informative)
I see you don't know too many spammers. Keep in mind the constant DDOS attempts on Spamhaus, the DDOS that took monkeys.com offline for good (Thanks for all your hard work, Ron! We appreciate it!), the SPEWS DDOS, constant "Joe-Jobs" against people who report spammers (usually those spammers on blackhat ISPs who pass complaints on to the spammers), Above.net, who will start advertising your route so that your network can't be reache
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:2)
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:3, Interesting)
An interesting idea, but it isn't really going to address spamming Google's index. The websites that really screw up Google returns aren't the ones that actually have a product to sell; they're the bajillions of bogus domains that the scammers an
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:2)
If you're google, exactly how is this a losing venture?
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:2)
Re:Spam Ideas - An Interesting Look at GMAIL? (Score:5, Informative)
You assume that Google has psychics working for them. A Joe Job and true spam are indistinguishable from one another. A Joe Job consists of spam that is sent out just like all other spam, the only difference is the target of the links.
For example, Bill has a website www.BuyBillsWidgets.com and he's doing fairly well.
Jack has a website that sells a similar widget www.BuyJacksWidgets.com and he isn't doing quite as well as Bill.
Jack enlists a spammer to send out 500k emails that link to www.BuyBillsWidgets.com. Google has no way of knowing who commissioned the sending of the spam. With your system Bill will be punished by the downranking of his page because Jack Joe Jobbed him.
Not even Google has the ability to determine the purpose of spam.
I guess maybe you need to learn what a Joe Job [wikipedia.org] is.
LK
Spam and Ads? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why the big fuss? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why the big fuss? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes the public needs to be protected from its own stupidity. However, sometimes the people who try to protect the public end up being stupid and the public needs protected from that...
Re:Why the big fuss? (Score:2)
Re:Why the big fuss? (Score:3, Insightful)
don't use Gmail! It's really that simple,
My understanding was that the controversial features (reading, analyzing, storing) occur with letters you receive as well as send. This means that your correspondence may end up in the pool whether you agree to the terms or not, or even if you didn't know about them. Even if you know the terms and don't send to gmail because of them, you don't know where people end up forwarding their stuff.
So it's really in everyone's common interests to critique what is appr
Re:Why the big fuss? (Score:2)
I wonder if gmail will detect PGP/GPG and send you ads for security and encryption-related products.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
two words: (Score:5, Insightful)
Yahoo Groups
You'd be surprised how many people use it
slashdot keeps every post you make (Score:5, Insightful)
I like this approach, it makes you think about what you say. Maybe some emails shouldn't be sent. If you have to worry about it, you shouldn't do it.
Re:slashdot keeps every post you make (Score:2, Interesting)
And GMail will not AFAIK release your emails to the public. So I will/would simply not use this service to send really private mails. But I don't care if there's a private archive somewhere of me writing "happy birthday" to my father.
Re:slashdot keeps every post you make (Score:2)
I wouldn't use e-mail to send any truely secret material at all. Even if you can use encryption to hide your message, you still can't encrypt SMTP headers for the system to work. Therefore, a possible interceptor would still be able to deduce that somebody sent something to you, and it's something that I've taken an unusual effort to
Re:slashdot keeps every post you make (Score:2, Informative)
Re:slashdot keeps every post you make (Score:2)
Google Server Farms (Score:5, Interesting)
heck they plan on hardware failure, and if a box drops dead, they do not even pull it out of the line up until sometime the following week.
Re:Google Server Farms (Score:2)
I thought I saw something on the google site that said they pulled systems every once in a while. They probably send a guy through with a cart to clear off the shelf or rack.
Re:Google Server Farms (Score:5, Funny)
They're just being honest... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you hit "delete", more often than not in computer land, your data is not immediately rendered unrecoverable. In most operating systems, deleted files are ushered over to a "holding bin" for a final clear-out command to really get rid of them in case we want to change our mind. Once the OS finally lets go of the file, the file system often takes the short cut of just removing the index pointers to the file and/or marking the space as "unused", but leaving the data still spinning on the drive until something eventually wants to use that space... let's face it, a "quick format" doesn't have time to hit every track on the drive, it's taking a shortcut and that's what makes it "quick".
So, really, they're just saying that in order to make their magical mega-system work, "delete" isn't going to mean "Expunge it all right away!" but simply "Put in the pile that'll be discarded the next time the garbage collection process comes by." Therefore, they'll need to keep your "deleted" e-mails for an undisclosed length of time... they don't intend on keeping it forever, although they have to word the privacy policy in a way that might be misread that way because to do less just wouldn't be being honest.
If you don't have root access to the e-mail system where you work, you don't really know if "delete really means delete" on that system either. Your boss may in fact have access to your e-mail... you might as well assume that they do unless you know otherwise.
An API to link gmail with Thunderbird/Moz/Outlook (Score:4, Interesting)
Y! has this functionality for Outlook only; and it's seriously flawed (tasks get truncated at like 20 characters or something - ugh!).
Google certainly has what it takes to pull this off right. Hopefully, they'll provide a way for developers to integrate with the gmail API with external apps (ala T-bird, etc).
You can bet your last dollar that MSNmail, etc will (or already do; I don't use MSN) offer Syncronzation with their desktop apps.
Re:An API to link gmail with Thunderbird/Moz/Outlo (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft-owned Hotmail has been integrated into Outlook Express since the late 90s. A free msn.com address is nothing more than Hotmail by another name.
Google: Gentlemanly Like Business Practices (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm inherently paranoid (or, perhaps more appropriately, private) and always take things with a grain of salt - especially when it's coming from a business the size of Google.
That said, I don't blame Google for their desire to recoup costs by generating targeting advertisement. I'm very much impressed with how open they have been about the procedures they will use to actually target the ads. With this recent letter that so quickly and openly answers concerns made public recently, I'm happy to say here is a company that has been widly successful - all while being true gentlemen.
Re:Google: Gentlemanly Like Business Practices (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Google: Gentlemanly Like Business Practices (Score:2)
The old saying goes "Once bitten, twice shy." The average consumer has not simply been bitten - we've damn well lost appendages to these bloody big-business types who demand the squeezing of every last half-penny from the buyer.
It's really to be expected that GMail's services are going to come under fire. We're wary as a result of the repeat offenders who populate the market place.
I'm impressed with Google, and use their search engine almost exclusively. I hope they
Re:Google: Gentlemanly Like Business Practices (Score:2, Insightful)
I maintain that it is dangerous for one company to have access to so much information, regardless of their policy on evil; after all, they are ultimately only responsible to the owners, and after an IPO they will be responsible only to the stockholders. Google as a compan
Gmail (Score:4, Informative)
Gmail will be a success! (Score:4, Interesting)
Here are a few reviews that I was reading
I for one won't be trying it. (Score:2)
What if it IS just email? (Score:5, Insightful)
At least with an e-mail service, Google will be standing on two feet when this happens. People will want to check their GMail no matter what search they are using. Google isn't even close to the financial power of Microsoft right now, so it needs to prepare for the attack...
Re:What if it IS just email? (Score:3, Funny)
Workaround for gmail and privacy. (Score:5, Interesting)
2. use a browser/email decrypter plugin to unencrypt your mail when you read it.
PGP as a form of encryption is commonly available. Theoritically possible but I am not sure how practical it is.
This way all the webmail programs do not know what is being transmitted/stored.
How about other applications that can use the 1GB of storage from gmail?
e.g. online filesystem - files stored as attachments to emails to yourself.
What else?
Well it's evident... (Score:2)
1 GB is a helluva lot of space, but when you think of it 1 GB of text works out to on average 100MB of compressed ASCII. So what's the chance of someone using up their full 100MB of compressed text... for the average user it'd probably take YEARS.
I say there's a 10:1 chance that Google blocks attachments. For me, that means that GMail is essentially a glorified, logged IM. and
Re:Well it's evident... (Score:5, Informative)
Non-executables (zip, jpg, doc, html, gif, pdf, etc.) are accepted just fine, and the per-message limit is 10 megs.
Re:Well it's evident... (Score:3, Insightful)
I suggest you get out of your cave and realise how the real world works. Jane User and Grandma User doesn't care for SSL/PGP/SFTP..etc. They want something that works and something thats easy - enter email and GMail.
Don't be sheep.. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Please
Don't bother tearing into this post, I could care less what you think.
Re:Don't be sheep.. (Score:2)
biggest problem with gmail: governmental request (Score:5, Interesting)
The most serious concern is the privacy policy itself.
http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/privacy.html
Specifically:
As a standard email protocol, when you send an email from your Gmail account, Gmail includes your email address and user name in the header of the email. Beyond this, we do not disclose your personally identifying information to third parties unless we believe we are required to do so by law or have a good faith belief that such access, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, (b) enforce the Gmail Terms of Use, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues (including, without limitation, the filtering of spam), (d) respond to user support requests, or (e) protect the rights, property or safety of Google, its users and the public.
"governmental request" means pretty much they'll turn over any information withouut a subpoena. I suppose for a free service, you get what you pay for.
Re:biggest problem with gmail: governmental reques (Score:3, Insightful)
Just notice that the wording is in a negative mode at that point. They're listing situaitons in which they won't reveal information. They're not saying that they will hand over infomation to a weak government request... just that you don't get to sue them if they decide to so.
It all goes back to whether you trust Google to know the difference between a non
Re:biggest problem with gmail: governmental reques (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at the very first condition (a), you'll see that they explicitly define a government request as seperate from a "legal process", "law", or "regulation". Clearly, the act of obtaining and presenting a warrant or subpoena falls under the category of "legal process", which is identified as being different from a "government request".
As well, notice that that Google explicitly says that they will turn over personal information to "third parties". That could mean anyone-- your boss, your teacher, your parents, the RIAA, or even your Rabbi. The simple fact of the matter is that the only way to get privacy in e-mail is to run your own servers and only send and receive encrypted e-mail messages.
I'm not saying that Google is evil-- though they do admit that they will be more than helpful in providing anyone with your personal information if the request satisfies any of the above conditions which, in my opinion, are overly broad -- but I do think that any organisation that really cared about your privacy would have a simple policy: they would not turn over information unless the request was made through the legal process.
Other searchable email (Score:5, Informative)
One existing, non-web, alternative is Bloomba [bloomba.com] which has a *great* search function, even on high volumes. My email client is already indexing well in excess of 10K messages (folders cap out at displaying >5K, I have two of those) so I dont have a real count), and searches all take less than a second.
Nice Interface. (Score:2, Funny)
Now lets turn it on and give it a try!
Makes you wonder what is next?
I want a Google watch!
msn and yahoo (Score:3, Insightful)
40% of users use google
30% use msn
30% use yahoo
25% use aol
various others have smaller shares...
clearly some folks use more than one engine...
if google charged for search and they would suffer...
as original poster pointed out few complain about msn and yahoo cause they dont give a damn....hysterical ninnys will complain about just about anything so let em.
if you want free email from google, google will have the option of setting some terms...dont like em, dont use it.
move on.
Re:msn and yahoo (Score:2)
If you need privacy... (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand why people are a little freaked out by G-Mail, but really, if you need privacy, you shouldn't use ANY mail service that you aren't absolutely sure doesn't read email, and you should encrypt your message as plain text emails can be intercepted at any of the thousands of mail servers your mail will pass through.
aggieben (Score:2)
I do.
That kind of thing is *precisely* why I don't use those email services other than for stupid registrations for free stuff (once called "soul-sucking email registration" in a post on
As for GMail, 1000MB of space sounds great, but when I have to worry about computer systems that track my interests and someone
Having worked for Google... (Score:5, Interesting)
Mandatory Tinfoil Conspiracy Theory (MTCT) (Score:3, Funny)
My girlfriend's cousin's best friend's roommate in college reported that his brother-in-law (who works for Microsoft, so you know it's from a reliable source) tells me he "handles" the PR firm that is managing this whole campaign, to make it look like Google is a big, scary ursine terror, instead of the big fluffy teddy bear they really are. Microsoft has (to date) spent $1.2M buying advertising disguised as special-interest groups, "reporters" for major tech rags, and M&Ms for the office.
Really. Don't laugh at me like that. I'm serious. It's all part of Microsoft's astroturf campaign to discredit Google.
Usability (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing to be a cross between web mail and a desktop email client: it is written in several hundred kilobytes of javascript.
Someone is clearly out to get Google. (Score:2)
Granted that California senator (or whatever she is) is playing this for the face time during an election year, but one has to wonder if she has recieved any contributions recently to her campaign...
Random thought... (Score:5, Interesting)
Files would be stored as attachments, along with a file allocation table of some sort. Send a mail to yourself to write a file; delete the mail to erase it.. but all totally transparent to you. It'd be a bit slow, but some clever caching/buffering could take care of that.
You could theoretically get it to span across several accounts to store files larger than a gig. Just add un/pw's to a config file to increase your storage capacity.
Even if they don't end up providing pop3/smtp, you can still just script the html sessions like YahooPOPs! does.
Slightly offtopic.. (Score:2)
Can Amazon Unplug Google?> [business2.com]
POP3/SMTP? (Score:3, Insightful)
For web email I use mailvault, and for real email I use gmx, which still gives you free POP3 and SMTP.
Searching is actually the weakest feature of gmail (Score:4, Interesting)
You can only do whole word searches... if you want to search for emails from your friend Bob Chuzzlewit-Pumblechook, and you have ten friends named Bob, you can't shorten your search by searching for "Chuzz", as that will return nothing.
Kind of ironic, since on any other email client you can search for partial words.
Trust, but verify (Score:3, Interesting)
Gmail wants to change my brain. (Score:4, Interesting)
The "Search Mail" box is always at the top of your page, on any screen, and since Gmail encourages you not to delete anything, the Search box becomes the easiest way to find stuff. (If there's a way to sort alphabetically by sender or subject, I haven't figured it out.) I think if I used Gmail regularly, it would make my brain even more more search-reliant in my daily life. It's one thing to have a cookie on my computer, but it's another thing to feel like they're messing with my brain. THAT is a privacy concern.
Re:Instead of screenshots... (Score:2)
Re:Instead of screenshots... (Score:4, Insightful)
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick!
Do they not teach history at all any more?
I'm Alexander Ivanovich Ladyzhenski. I have nothing to hide; despite my noble origins, I'm just interested in my job, teaching mathematics, in my native land of Russian. In 1937, Ladyzhenskaya was arrested in one of Stalin's purges and in a show trial convicted, for his family's status as minor nobility, an "enemy of the Russian people" and sentenced to death.
I'm Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I have nothing to hide; I'm a minister and a theology professor. I'm just interested in being a good Christian, and keeping Christianity from being taken over by pagan practices in my native land of Germany. In 1943, Dr. Bonhoeffer was arrested by the Gestapo after his opposition to Hitler's racial policies and attempt to take over the German Church lead him to join a plot to assassinate Hitler. He was executed just three weeks before the Allied victory over Germany in 1945.
I'm Matthew Shepard. I have nothing to hide; well, except I'm gay, but I'll confide that to these two nice fellows I'm having drinks with in this bar. The two men Shepard was talking with, Aaron James McKinney and Russel (sic) Arthur Henderson, lured Shepard into leaving with them in their car. They then robbed, brutally beat, and tied Shepard to a fence, leaving him for dead. Found eighteen hours later, Shepard survived five more days before dying of his injuries.
The graveyards are full of people who "had nothing to hide" until a change in government or an encounter with thugs meant they suddenly found themselves outsiders and victims, members of some group considered "ok" to brutalize and oppress.
But of course, this is America, and it can't happen here, right? Matthew Shepard was just an exception, right?
I'm Fred Hampton. I have nothing to hide; I'm a member of the Black Panther Party fighting for civil rights and to end gang violence in Chicago. In 1969, asm part of is COINTELPRO program to suppress leftist dissent, the FBI provided the Chicago Police Department with the floor plan of Hampton's apartment. On December 4, police raided Hampton's apartment, firing automatic weapons. Hampton was found in his bed wounded by the police gunfire and possibly drugged by a police informant. From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
A later investigation found that of the one hundred bullets fired in the raid, the police had fired ninety-nine; the single bullet fired by a Black Panther had been fired in a reflex spasm as the man died.
But you have nothing to hide.
Re:Gmail ScreenShots (Score:2, Interesting)
More screen shots [google.com]