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Xprize, Summer of code, etc. Google is definitely a great company. Sure Gmail is Creepy and they've taken heat for their TOS, but they are still a stand-up, innovative company in my mind. And god-by-every-name bless those guys for their green mindedness and showing its possible for a billionaire corp to do some good.

However, that doesn't mean they won't be next generation's Microsoft. Remember, MS had the little guy advantage for a while, and was innovative and even generous with the charities. But plenty hate them now.

www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com has a good run-down of the issues with using Google's email. Specifically, Google tracks everything and has a LOT of intimate knowledge of using statistical data (like the data in your corporate emails) for it's own benefit -- behold the power of relational databases (Bayesian techniques are just the tip of the iceberg).

Also of note, even without encryption, intra-office email travels from one user's computer to the company's internal mail server, never leaving the office. The recipient is also in the office, so even upon delivery, nobody can have read the message. On top of this, any sane implementation will involve encryption (SSMTP and IMAPS), so even if either or both of these users are off-site, it still doesn't pass unencrypted outside the company.

Singularity looks like testing the waters of an OSS kernel. This is (IMHO) a direct result of the pressure applied by PC vendors deciding to ship Ubuntu and friends. Microsoft sees the need for a move, and as you put it, the "concept car" is there to be scrutinized rather than realized.

It is in Microsoft's best interests to get the hell out of the kernel business. I don't understand why this isn't plainly clear to their executives. If they want to kill Linux, they should jump on board some other train ... probably a BSD. Sure, purposeful incompatibility would be in the mix, so it won't be so interchangeable with other BSD incarnations like OS X or FreeBSD, but it would solve many of their security issues right off. This would move Microsoft's OS team from competing with Red Hat and Ubuntu to competing with GTK+/Gnome and Qt/KDE, which is wise because the BSD and Linux kernels beat the pants off of the Windows kernel, whereas it's a far closer race in the desktop environment arena, and Microsoft has the office suite battle pretty much in the bag (so this line of logic would suggest an official Linux release for Office further down the line).

There is also pressure on the mobile front, with MS solutions looking like they will lose to Google's Andriod (Java), Nokia's Qtopia (C++/Qt), and FIC's OpenMoko (C/GTK+). C# isn't half bad, so if they start developing something along the lines of an Andriod/Qt/GTK+ killer that also fuels their desktop GUI, they stay in the game. Otherwise, their mainstay will fade into X-Box, Office, and perhaps Visual Studio.

Alternatively, they could use their obscene wealth to flat-out buy Google's biggest competitor... *shudder*

As a note ... I could never have imagined myself writing this two or more years ago. I was as anti-Microsoft as they come ... but my fear and hate for them is transitioning to Google (see http://www.google-watch.org/ and http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/ for reference). We'll see how a corporate mantra of "don't be evil" works for a company in the business of being evil.

If my Momma prefers Yahoo's web interface then Yahoo is easier to use.

Gmail is all about the POP access... and 24x7 spying, IMHO.

but it doesn't seem to me that Google is any worse of a choice than others.

Others may disagree.

The subpoena asks for not only current e-mail but also deleted e-mail: "All documents concerning all Gmail accounts of Baker...for the period from Jan. 1, 2003, to present, including but not limited to all e-mails and messages stored in all mailboxes, folders, in-boxes, sent items and deleted items, and all links to related Web pages contained in such e-mail messages."

But don't forget: All your email are belong to Google

(see http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

I think we've all seen this web site about Google's power.... or it's potential for power..

Sergey and Larry in a hot tub:
http://www.google-watch.org/gifs/hottub4.jpg

Sergey in drag:
http://www-db.stanford.edu/~sergey/photos/drag96.j pg

Larry taking a final in "Computers and Social Ethics" at Stanford:
http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/gifs/larry5.jpg

Larry on a Segway:
http://www.google.com/googledance2003/images/g0681 .jpg

Eric's house:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=366+Walsh+Rd,+Athert on,+CA&spn=0.002889,0.005137&t=k&hl=en

Google outs Valerie Plame:
http://www.google-watch.org/valerie.html

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www. nathanslunch.com/Nathans04%2520079.JPG&imgrefurl=h ttp://www.nathanslunch.com/PhotoPage.htm&h=1536&w= 2048&sz=661&tbnid=AN0nR-46KkoJ:&tbnh=112&tbnw=150& hl=en&start=5&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dvalerie%2Bplame%2 6svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

Oops, we didn't really mean to say, "Don't be evil." We meant to say, "Be evil." Sorry about that. Now up against the wall, you gullible geeks!
_____________

April 6, 2004, Associated Press, by Michael Liedtke:
Wayne Rosing [a Google vice president] said there will be an information firewall separating Google's search engine from Gmail. "We don't use the data collected on one service," he said, "to enhance another."
____________

On July 1, 2004, Google modified their main privacy policy to comply with a new California law. Here is the zinger: "If you have an account, we may share the information submitted under your account among all of our services in order to provide you with a seamless experience and to improve the quality of our services."

See http://www.gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

Actually the fact that google might do it has already raised a firestorm:

http://gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

Reasons Being a /.'er and not care about their retaining policies? when I read that link, i turned the invitation down. limited account on hotmail has more guarantees that email is actually deleted by the server after it's deleted by the user.

my 2c

This is only a minor setback. First, Web access to Hotmail through Outlook Express is the ONLY reason people like me are using OE in the first place. Now Hotmail is cutting off my last link to using them over Yahoo or Gmail.

This is a major boon for Thunderbird and projects like Yahoo Pops, where Yahoo mail free customers can configure Outlook Express or another superior mail client to HTML Parse their mail to and from a free web account that has a well known instant messanger associated with it.

This message may only be scanned and indexed by Gmail to the extent necessary
to make it accessible for the recipient. No part of this message may be used to
generate information intended to be used for advertising and/or marketing,
except by the recipient.

From http://gmail-is-too-creepy.com/:

Google is dying: Death by a billion cuts

Presumably you have a Gmail account,
and do not object to Google's policies

But many of us will not send mail to gmail.com ...

Problem 1: Gmail is nearly immortal

Google offers 1 gig of storage, which is many times the storage offered by Yahoo or Hotmail, or other Internet service providers that we know about. The powerful searching encourages account holders to never delete anything. It takes three clicks to put a message into the trash, and more effort to delete this message. It's much easier to "archive" the message, or just leave it in the inbox and let the powerful searching keep track of it. Google admits that even deleted messages will remain on their system, and may also be accessible internally at Google, for an indefinite period of time.

Google has been spinning their original position in press interviews, and with an informal page described as "a few words about privacy and Gmail." When we see fresh material from Google, we check the modification date at the bottom of the terms-of-use page and privacy page for Gmail. If these dates are still April 6 and April 8, we know that nothing has changed. Google can modify these pages too, any way they want and whenever they want, unilaterally. But at least these two pages carry slightly more legal weight than other pages, because Google should attempt to notify users of significant changes in these formal policies.

A new California law, the Online Privacy Protection Act, went into effect on July 1, 2004. Google changed their main privacy policy that same day because the previous version sidestepped important issues and might have been illegal. For the first time in Google's history, the language in their new policy makes it clear that they will be pooling all the information they collect on you from all of their various services. Moreover, they may keep this information indefinitely, and give this information to whomever they wish. All that's required is for Google to "have a good faith belief that access, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or the public." Google, you may recall, already believes that as a corporation they are utterly incapable of bad faith. Their corporate motto is "Don't be evil," and they even made sure that the Securities and Exchange Commission got this message in Google's IPO filing.

Google's policies are essentially no different than the policies of Microsoft, Yahoo, Alexa and Amazon. However, these others have been spelling out their nasty policies in detail for years now. By way of contrast, we've had email from indignant Google fans who defended Google by using the old privacy language -- but while doing so they arrived at exactly the wrong interpretation of Google's actual position! Now those emails will stop, because Google's position is clear at last. It's amazing how a vague privacy policy, a minimalist browser interface, and an unconventional corporate culture have convinced so many that Google is different on issues that matter.

After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and become just another database record. This means that a subpoena instead of a warrant is all that's needed to force Google to produce a copy. Other countries may even lack this basic protection, and Google's databases are distributed all over the world. Since the Patriot Act was passed, it's unclear whether this ECPA protection is worth much anymore in the U.S., or whether it even applies to email that originates from non-citizens in other countries.

Google's relationships with government officials in all of the dozens of countries where they operate are a mystery, because Google never makes any statements about this. But here's a clue

I would prefer to watch google like a chickenhawk

See that innocent looking computer housing facility?

Look again, it's a weapons lab.

"oh they can't be bad they play hockey and are 'nice' guys".

Wrong again buddy, hockey comes from canada, besides - that's a terrorist training camp in there.

we have much evidence to this fact here and here

don't believe these guys, they are just dripping in liberal "we-need-evidence-and-a-backbone-transplant" bias.

Those bleeding purple heart liberals just don't want to go into google and sort those bastards out. They are all like "we don't love our country enough" and they read subversive sites on the net. Luckily with a little help from the NSA encryption breakers (why you think we stopped banning crypto exports? hahahahaah) we have tagged them all into various MATRIX databases. Man do these guys buy some wishy-washy new-age crap from amazon along with their stalinist polemics.

"Zen and the art of coding simple command line LISP interfaces to your home enema machine" WTF?!?!?

We had to shut down one of the matrix databases the other day though, because it was comming up with all the ahem "younger" porn searches from our nations outstanding religious leaders who have really rallied behind the national cause to spread fear and crush dissent.

anyway, google is being invaded, the economy is too down and I owe the saudis too many favours to let Saddam Bin Laden, Hussien... whatever, from getting away with threatening us from the google compound. Just last week I typed "saddam" into their search engine to find sattelite pictures of him to blow his ass up.... and what do I find? THIS a freaking tribute page to saddam from the google guys. I was like OMG you guys are *SO* getting your asses invaded. And then I was like "where are they?" and I looked it up and they WERE IN AMERICA.

This is no cuba-on-our-door-step type senario this is a national emergency. So I waved my anthrax wand at those UN guys we pay to look fair and they agreed that out intel was TIP TOP.

and I rang up google and I was like (in my best john wayne voice)"ITS THE END OF THE LINE YOU COMMIE TERRORISTS, YOU AND YOUR WEAPONS WILL BE DESTROYED"

And the operator was like "Let the American infidels bask in their illusion"

It was then that I knew that we are right, and that god is on our side. I just held the mission acomplished party of a big beefy boat and we are set to invade tommorow!

This is actually something the people who run googlewatch.org are worried about. They feel google's suggestion to archive and never delete will cause lots of privacy problems. Here's a quote from http://gmail-is-too-creepy.com/

"After 180 days in the U.S., email messages lose their status as a protected communication under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and become just another database record. This means that a subpoena instead of a warrant is all that's needed to force Google to produce a copy. Other countries may even lack this basic protection, and Google's databases are distributed all over the world. Since the Patriot Act was passed, it's unclear whether this ECPA protection is worth much anymore in the U.S., or whether it even applies to email that originates from non-citizens in other countries."

...even if google does seem to be the land of chocolate.
This website does a good job summing it up:
gmail creepy.

Goodness, all the groveling for Gmail invites. I should change the cartoon so that the last stage in devolution is not a mere Gmail logo, but something like a Slashdot logo superimposed on a Gmail logo.

Initially I got a couple of invitations I could give away, every couple of weeks, and it was easy to find close friends to give them to. Then I found I had seven invitations this week and had run out of obvious candidates. I tried gmailswap, but the interesting ones (like a pound of Kona coffee) went too quickly, and the others were uninteresting to me. So I sent a note to my orkut friends, and quickly had well over a dozen requests for accounts despite including a disclaimer pointing to gmail-is-too-creepy.com :). I gave away the ones I had, and surprisingly got a few more the very next day. I still have a queue of about 5 people I owe accounts to.

PS. This was a really, really nice Slashdot article, with a treasure trove of gmail information. Well done.