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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).
If you've got a trust-nobody mentality then what Google has to say means nothing, they're going to rip up their privacy policy and send every e-mail that goes through their system directly to 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...
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.
If you don't like Google's terms/serving ads based on your email... don't use Gmail! It's really that simple, no need for extra laws. Let the free market decide.
(maybe because no one uses MSN or Yahoo as a search engine these days, but still)
Yahoo Groups
You'd be surprised how many people use it
Isn't this true? What is the difference?
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.
Jeoin
I think they've clarified they privacy policy to a level that us geeks should easily be able to understand...
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.
And how quickly after they did this would spammers use it to trash people's pagerank?
Have a gripe with Slashdot? Spam a few billion Gmail users with a link to slashdot, and wham. Instant PageRank death.
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
I'm really impressed with how Google has handled themselves since their inception. They have certainly been innovative, but most importantly they employ things that aren't seen enough in today's business world: openness and integrity.
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.
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...
Why couldn't they just use a few accounts of their own to accomplish this? Sign up for a few yahoo/hotmail/etc accounts, give the addresses out to a bunch of spam-sellers then harvest the "bulk" folders every day.
they don't need 6 million copies of the same email to decrement a site's score.
You can bet your last dollar that MSNmail, etc will (or already do; I don't use MSN) offer Syncronzation with their desktop apps.
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.
"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.
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-mandatory government request they should comply with and one they should turn away.
last figures i saw showed approximately
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.
With millions of mailboxes full of keywords such as "viagra," I couldn't think of a worse way to associate ads with a user.
You want Grandma to use a password-protected website or FTP server??!! Hang on...you want Jane User to set these services up??!
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.
If you want to mail sommat you don't want The Government to see, then use another method of mailing it.
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.
-Derick
"If you've got a trust-nobody mentality..."
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.
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
The intro blurb says this:
>No more keeping email forever is at the
>top of the list.
I think this is in reference to the claims bouncing around that Google would be keeping mail forever even after you deleted it or closed your account. THEY NEVER WERE GOING TO DO THIS. There was a misunderstanding about what Google meant when they warned that "residual" copies of emails could remain around after you deleted them.
They were just warning that they wouldn't be able to erase every copy from every backup instantly and some people got confused and started yelling that the sky was falling. Sheesh.
Apparently a few reporters weren't around English class the day they covered what "residual" means.
There is now a clear statement on the Gmail site that they will make a reasonable effort to remove deleted data as soon as practicable.
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:
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.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Without POP and SMTP support, who really cares? I don't have time to check 50 emails a day on a web interface.
For web email I use mailvault, and for real email I use gmx, which still gives you free POP3 and SMTP.
I am getting tired of the line "big companies have to be evil because they only care about profit". Let the evil companies sell crack to help their bottom line, let me support companies like Google who gives me something in return.
bring it on! --- JFK