Google's Sergey Brin Talks on Gmail's Future

de la mettrie writes "Sergey Brin of Google has been discussing the future of GMail in a recent eWeek article. He says that the ongoing beta test will likely take about six months, and that the implementation of mail forwarding, POP access, mail encryption and even RSS feeds is being considered."

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[SpanishInquisition]

you can always reach him at sergey_brin@hotmail.com

Don thy Tinfoil Hat.

[grub]

already slashdotted, here's the text:


Steve Gillmor : Hi Sergey, thanks for taking the time to do this interview.
Sergey Brin : My pleasure, Steve.
Gillmor : So why gmail? It sounds like an expensive endeavor.
Brin : Yes, it really is. We have to weigh the curve of user data and disk space then constantly keep ahead of the users' requirements.
Gillmor : Can you give us a ballpark figure as to cost?
Brin : No, not really. It's being paid for by the NSA, actually.
Gillmor : The NSA? Why?
Brin : They've realized that they have to put on a "friendlier face" to the public. Being that Google already has a huge infrastructure, it only made sense that they use it. They approached us over a year ago with this idea.
Gillmor : The NSA wants to manage the email of literally hundreds of millions of net users? Don't the privacy implications concern you?
Brin : No. The NSA have told me, in fact our contact wrote it on a cocktail napkin, that they wouldn't snoop user mail. They are really nice people. Think about it, who would you rather trust with your personal email, Hotmail & Microsoft or Google & the NSA? I think the answer is obvious.
Gillmor : In all honesty, I don't think the answer is clear.
Brin : Sure it is, if Hotmail "fills up" you're out of luck, with gmail the NSA have gratiously offered to let us use some of their disk storage on their Cray and SGI SANs. Like I said, really nice people.
Gillmor : Can you give is the name of your contact?
Brin : [answers cell call, hangs up] This interview is over.

Re:Don thy Tinfoil Hat.

[shish]

who would you rather trust with your personal email, Hotmail & Microsoft or Google & the NSA?

So Microsoft aren't passing mails through the NSA filters? When did they stop?

Re:Best thing since 1998 Hotmail

[hkfczrqj]

Now if they only make a Google Messenger, we're all set!

This is Slashdot. We are all set if and only if that IM is Jabber based and the client can run on *IX, GNU/Linux, *BSD...

:)

Could Google Kill Spam?

[pipingguy]

Given the bright minds over there, I have to wonder. Unfortunately for me, I don't think I'd qualify for even a junior janitor trainee position at their offices (I think he's doing particle physics research in his spare time).

Re:How did they pick beta testers?

[richard_za]

I'd really appreciate one of those passes.

Re:How did they pick beta testers?

[hobbsbutcher]

This is true. I signed into Blogger one day and there was a little box asking if I would like to give Gmail a try. There wasn't a "You bet your ass" button, so I just clicked yes. Now I am a Gmail user.

Re:How did they pick beta testers?

[richard_za]

I'm not kidding, but a few minutes after posting this, I discovered how to get a gmail test account. Needless to say a will be posting a review on my blog soon.

Sergey Brin = worse than Saddam?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't just the happy grin he exhibits in every picture, though that is annoying. No, I consider Sergey evil because:

a) he has my dream job
b) he defined what my dream job would be
c) he thought of cool stuff before me
d) he has more stuff than me

I don't mind Bill Gates much despite his money because his company and his ideas are mundane and never very exciting. Oh sure, I'd like to have a mountain fortress with helipads and scuba tunnels, and I guess it would have been OK if I'd come up with the Windows oses, but really I could take or leave it.

Ditto Linus Torvalds. He has the opposite problem. He has neat ideas, but, no offense Linus (I know he is reading this), not exactly a dream job. I am only mildly envious of him. Larry Ellison I am also slightly envious of because of his crazy samurai stuff but due to his crazy samurai brain I don't think I'd want to be him.

No, as far as being others goes, I'll take Sergey Brin and his unique name and mysterious heritage and brilliant smile and rugged good looks and cool job and money.

That bastard.

Re:Best thing since 1998 Hotmail

[nfsilkey]

Before I had it, I was the screenshots and I was not impressed

In Russia, the screenshots were you!

Re:How did they pick beta testers?

[Pranjal]

and how do you get an account? :p