Gmail Commentary and Responses

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).

Comments

Don't care about privacy

[Zutroi_Zatatakowsky]

Since that 1GB will quickly be filled with spam and nothing else. Let them search and index THAT!

Re:We trust Google.... don't we.

[Lord Kano]

John Ashcroft using their PageRank sorting technology to indicate which e-mails are most relavant to his desire to repeal every amendment in numbered order...

Ashcroft is a conservative, he'll never think of touching the 2nd amendment.

LK

Re:Google Server Farms

[Skidge]

Yeah, they send out this guy.

Re:We trust Google.... don't we.

[amRadioHed]

It's not about whether I trust Google's intentions. So long as Google is an American company, or more precisely so long as its headquarters exist in *any* country, there's a danger that the government of said country can bully them into giving up all the information they have on anybody.

This is very true. Fortunately google is currently working to address these concerns.