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Gmail Addresses For Sale

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the employment-at-will dept.

challahc writes "For the low, low price of $199, you too can be one of the lucky testers of Googles new Gmail service. Just Ebay It! This CNet News story has the details." Bill Walsh adds "The account for hackers@gmail.com is asking 200 dollars! Is it a good idea to buy anything that's in beta? Couldn't Google just wipe out all of the beta accounts when the service starts up?"

9 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. paying for free mail? by chaos421 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    there's a sucker born every minute. gmail sounds pretty neat, however i'm willing to wait for the public opening. some people i'd see spending $200 for one of these accounts... yahoo/netscape/microsoft employees associated with their respective free mail... if they get in and see what it looks like, they can get ready to add countering features to their sites faster.

  2. Smart by AstrumPreliator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pay a crap load of money for a beta account for a service that will be free sooner or later anyway. What are you gaining from getting this beta account? Bragging rights? Thats a hefty price for bragging rights.

  3. This is pathetic by MysticalMatt517 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is pathetic... I like google just as much as the next guy, but at the end of the day it's just e-mail. Before I'd fork over $200 for an e-mail address I'd register my own domain and create a tricked out one of my own.

  4. Ridiculous by MistaE · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I don't mean to sound troll or anything, but I just think this is getting really ridiculous. I mean, it's an email account to a beta service that hasn't even entered into official use yet. Also, another thing that peeves me are these damn squatters that (apparently) seem to just take accounts with (cool?) names that other folks might want and then sell them off. It's the same damn thing as domain squatting. Its nice that folks are trying to earn a living on the internet, but at least do it with something legit, not just shit like this.

    But then again, if people really do pay that much money for a damn name, then there's not much one can do about it. It just sounds kind of stupid to me.

  5. Account wiping by lorcha · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Couldn't Google just wipe out all of the beta accounts when the service starts up?
    Not likely. Google doesn't tend to do sucky things, and wiping out someone's legitimate email account, even if the thing is in beta, would really suck. How can you test the service without giving out your address, and if their users are actually using the accounts, I don't see how they could feel justified in deleting them.
    --
    "Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
  6. Re:Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale by ixplodestuff8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Chances are it's already on dozens of spam lists, since it was posted on slashdot, ebay, and countless other sites.

    $200 for a spam account!

  7. Isn't it time... by Malfourmed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... google had its own slashdot section?

    --
    a world in progress...
  8. I got one on Ebay using "Buy It Now" for $19.99 by hwsquaredcubed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I see all of the posts about "why would anyone pay for a free email account?", etc. I got mine about 5 minutes after that CNET story first hit on Friday. I immediately went to Ebay and searched for "gmail." After several screen refreshes, a "Buy It Now" listing for $19.99 popped up. I snapped it up immediately. Why? Even though my name is not that common, someone already has it registered on Hotmail and Yahoo. So I have to add numbers, etc., to my name and I have never liked that. It was worth $20 for me to get my own name at Gmail.com. The question about couldn't Google wipe out the Gmail accounts when it's out of beta is ridiculous. The first people they gave Gmail accounts to were Google employees and "friends of the company." Why would they piss those people off by canceling the beta accounts and making them then compete for usernames with the rest of the unwashed masses? They could, but they won't. Finally, if you have used Gmail, it is a damn good email service. There are few tweaks they need to make - the contacts management functions lags far behind Yahoo and Hotmail, for example, and, to my knowledge, there is no way to have desktop email alerts such as you get with Yahoo Messenger or Microsoft IM - but there is no question that they will fix these. Flame on, but I think that Gmail will ultimately surpass Yahoo and Hotmail for web-based email.

  9. I bet those employees are in the beta already by DrewMIT · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Weren't all "active" blogger users invited into the beta? Something tells me the odds that maybe one or two employees from Yah, AOL (nescape, who?), or MSFT just might have slipped through the cracks that way.