City Of Houston To Offer Free Email To Residents

Don Symes writes: "The City of Houston is getting ready to roll out 'free' email and web-hosted word processing. First to libraries and fire stations(!?), poorer areas, then to those who can afford ISPs." It would be interesting to compare the cost of Internet Access Technologies' multi-million dollar contract with private ISP access, especially for the dozen other cities considering similar deals.

Comments

How come they call it "Hewston"?

[unitron]

Is Hosuton anywhere near Houston?

Will the spammers be signing up all the poor people down there to do their dirty work for them? What kind of terms of service will the city impose and how bad does somebody have to screw up to lose their privileges, and how soon will the fight start over whether it's privilege or right?

Cool

[sllort]

Cool! Maybe someday they'll catch up to the Cleveland Freenet, 8 years of free publicly accessible e-mail!

This is a great step forward to catching up with Cleveland.

Re:Cool

[drsoran]

Yea, but the problem with Cleveland Freenet was that you needed a computer to access it. 99% of the time these days, anyone who has a computer should be able to afford at least dialup Internet access. If you can't afford $10/month for Internet access then you can't afford the electricity you're wasting with a computer either. Anyone who wants to be on the Internet is already on it. The rest are just cheapskates and technophobes. Do we WANT them on the Internet?

Firestations?

[suwain_2]

Yeah, my local news ran something on this.

Apparently, police and fire stations will have public Internet access. Does anyone else find the concept of going to the fire station to send e-mail to be a bit bizarre? "Hi, sorry it's taken me so long to respond, but I haven't been able to get to the local fire station this week..."

Also... Don't get me wrong, I have no reason to doubt the integrity of the police, but some people do. So... Wonder what they'll think about Internet censorship if you do your e-mail from a *police station*?

And yet another thing - won't people be in the way? I don't quite see this taking off that well, but if it does, it could become a pain to get to these local places for "normal" reasons...

Re:well

[Frymaster]

increasingly, email is an important vehicle for finding a job. if you can't afford the internet, maybe you need a job... if you haven't got a job, you can't afford the internet.

now the firestation comes to the rescue.

Digital divide

[Faux_Pseudo]

We saw an opportunity in the information age . . . to bridge the digital divide

Can some one tell how bad the digital divide was before the information age?

Needless to say I am really happy that since the information age is here we can fix this problem.

Houston to Give Itself Legal Headaches;Mediocre PR

[lawyamike]

This is nothing more than a boondoggle, a misallocation of resources. Why don't they also give everyone a yourname.houston.tx.us web page, or any other service that is easily available gratis for everyone whom would take advantage of it.

If the private sector is performing a service amicably -- e.g., providing free e-mail accounts to anyone with web access -- why would a locality waste even a tiny bit of resources to accomplish the same?

The odd legal twist on this -- that reason that I am even posting on this thread -- is that the Houston e-mail account doubtlessly will be more constrained than AOL or its ilk in what it can and cannot do to subscribers.

For example, let's say that some enterprising young tech at Houston's e-mail server decides to start reading e-mail at random, with the intention of invading privacy. That could satisfy the state action requirement necessary to make out a constitutional claim, with attorneys fees available for even a suit that garners only nominal damages.

For a more dramatic example, let's say that the e-mail system is administered in a way that creates a disparate impact on racial minorities. Let's say that some nut commandeers a server and spams hatemail across the ether. The state could be liable where a private actor would not be. (The constitutional generally only prevents state action that impinges on a citizen's rights, not the same conduct undertaken by a private actor.)

That's without even touching on the potential liability under Title VI and other federal statutes if the e-mail program employs federal funds.

Why would any municipality want to do this?

Re:Great idea, but will it reach its potential?

[spudnic]

No, no, no, and finally, no. I've worked with a couple of freenet projects. We took donated old PC hardware, fixed it up and provided it free of charge (along with a free account with an ISP) to people who just couldn't afford to pay.

Strange as it may seem to you, there are people who can't afford this who can read.

Some are old folks who use the Internet as a companion when nobody else is around. Others are inner-city and/or very rural kids whose parents are so screwed up that they can barely afford to keep the electricity on, much less provide connectivity.

The Internet to them can be a form of escape. Not only in the sense of a mental escape from their harsh reality, but in a physical escape from the poverty that surrounds them by utilizing the information that they then have access to via the 'net to make a better life for themselves.

No, not everyone who can read has ready access to a computer and the Internet. Not even close.

Swell. How about state-funded backrubs, too.

[brocktune]

What a stunningly transparent vote-buying scheme. Let me get this straight. They are not adding any new PCs - they are just giving free email and document storage.

What the heck is wrong with Yahoo, Hotmail, etc etc ad nauseam? Secret answer: they don't generate votes for incumbents. PCs in fire stations? Good to know my house burned down because of the queue to get that government pr0n.

I love the headline: "Houston citizens get free-email." No, it's not free. It will be paid for by your fellow citizens - most of whom work for a living.

go ahead, mod me down - my dogma will chew the tires off your karma.

This is just more city corruption

[Anonymous Coward]

First off i'd like to say that anyone in houston (or any other city for that matter) has had access to free internet almost as long as the internet has existed... juno/yahoo/hotmail/etc... and houston libraries have had computers connected to the internet for a couple of years now, which often remain unused.

So how does this change anything? Well, someone will get rich no doubt and i'm sure it will cost taxpayers money, as everything else does, lets not forget the new baseball stadium, football stadium, the 12 mile/hr train between the old baseball stadium and new one, the upcoming new basketball stadium, city-owned convention center, the poor excuse for a bus system, etc...
If they want to save money they can pay me $10,000,000 and i'll send out some mailings to all these people telling them they can register for free email at the places mentioned earlier and can access it at the libraries for free.

Re:Minimum wage laws

[iamblades]

All that is aside from the fact that minimum wage laws hamper free trade.

If someone want (or needs) to work for less than minimum wage, then they should definately be able to.

They don't get it

[Steeltoe]

Donation is something remarkable. It's giving something to other people, no strings attached, no expectations of the outcome. It may make you feel good, but without conditions, it can be even better. You can donate in many ways: Material, money, working, educating and generally helping out or being friendly.

What corporations like Microsoft do when they "donate" their own software to get tax-refunds and with conditions to ensure vendor lock-in, it can hardly be called donation at all. It's like a crack-dealer. The first dose is for free to get you hooked, then they start charging. Let me repeat: There's no way this is donation.

It should not be tax-refundable. Unfortunately, common sense has dropped significantly in later times. Now rules and laws reign supreme, and people abuse whatever holes they can to reach their own ends. It's ironical that donation is on that list too.

- Steeltoe