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GMail Sign-Ups Via Mobile
jm.one writes "In the wake of recent releases releases Google Desktop 2.0 Beta and Google Talk 1.0 Beta, Gmail (known as Google Mail for legal reasons in some areas) is finally open to everyone. Learn more in the Google Blog entry and register at the Gmail website. Please take note that sign-up occurs via mobile phone at the moment, and only U.S. citizens can register for now. Plans to add more countries are on the way."
It is still clearly marked "Beta" and no links to registration is found on the gmail.com website.
...that Google is now going to start to associate a Gmail account with their mobile number? This can be abused...
"Give up hope, dreams are for suckers."
Give Google your phone number to get free email? Whoa, if Microsoft tried this, they'd have a mob with pitchforks and torches descending on Redmond.
My personal opinion is that Google waited to long to release this service to the general public, and they have lost their edge in web mail.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
As serveral people have pointed out, Gmail is still in beta, they have just opened the sign-up model slightly.
VERY cool from a -spamming- standpoint, you mean.
1. Extremely quick
Quicker than Thunderbird or Outlook?
2. Very simple, unobtrusive interface
Simpler than Thunderbird or Outlook?
3. Extensive search features
Better than Thunderbird or Outlook?
4. Very large storage space
I already keep every mail that's not spam or duped in the replies, it's not nearly 2TB yet.
Plus; it's not backed up! If keeping e-mails is important, don't you think it should be backed up?
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Not that Google is evil now, but their ability to get *really* evil if they ever go evil has been steadily increasing...
One notable hole in Google's research lineup has been privacy. If all Google wants is aggregate data, why no clever solutions to provide the individual with guarantees that Google can't get useful individual data but can get useful aggregate data?
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
but wanting my mobile number is insane. Google, in my estimation, is not only a profitable corporate company, but with their recent hiring of top secret cleared engineers from the governemnt, I think they could be a part of echelon. Laugh all you want. Tell me I have a tinfoil hat all you want. What better way for the government to be able to spy on people without the legality of a wiretap, or breakin to look at your computer. Now they don't have to. Google is becoming far more powerful than even Microsoft. Microsoft isn't hording near the personal information as Google is collecting from people.
There are a number of articles from various sources on why people should fear Google froma privcy standpoint.
Read this for a little background info:
Google Watch
Quicker than Thunderbird or Outlook?
Depends on the speed of your computer and internet connection.
Simpler than Thunderbird or Outlook?
Sure.
Better than Thunderbird or Outlook?
Much better! It's as if you were searching the web with google!
I already keep every mail that's not spam or duped in the replies, it's not nearly 2TB yet.
It's not TB, it's GB.
Plus; it's not backed up! If keeping e-mails is important, don't you think it should be backed up?
Google employs redundant storage. I've heard that data is stored at least 3.5 times, but I'm not going to search for a source for this right now...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Quicker than Thunderbird or Outlook?
Outlook.pst | 1,970,129 KB | Office Data File
Yes. And that's not taking into account startup time for the application should it ever exit uncleanly (yay, "Recovering Mailboxes").
Simpler than Thunderbird or Outlook?
Umm, yes.
Better than Thunderbird or Outlook?
Ehh, so-so. They get the job done. Certainly the search interface is easier and faster than what Outlook provides.
I already keep every mail that's not spam or duped in the replies, it's not nearly 2TB yet.
You mean 2G. And for personal mail, it should be fine for a decade or two.
Plus; it's not backed up! If keeping e-mails is important, don't you think it should be backed up?
???
As opposed to keeping it in a mail file your local hard drive?
All the spammer needs is a pocket pc phone and a program that can read the SMS, and go to the web page and authenticate it. Easy peasy and all they have to use is a smartphone.
Since Google will inevitably store it, they would no longer allow other users to register with the same phone number. The purpose is not really that of a Turing test, but instead a way of limiting the demands on their resources.
shrug. don't like it? don't sign up. not like anyone is forcing you to. i'm sure you can sign up right now for a hotmail account and MS doesn't want your cell phone number.
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Now they want to keep and store mobile numbers. I understand why they're doing it, but couldn't another approach be used to limit account generation? (linking to a valid, non-GMail account for example)
So your proposed technique would allow a spammer to register, by providing a valid email account on his own mail server? The phone network is a good choice on Google's part, but not a new idea.In my reply a little further down, I pointed out Google's rationale for wanting a mobile phone number.
If you still don't buy it, that's fine, but that's what's going through their head.
I can kinda sorta see their point. What they don't want is a machine mass registering for new accounts from their registration site, and this effectively keeps that from happening.
However, in defense of the other repliers, I think that asking for people's cell phone numbers is a bit over the line. I wish they had just used something like word verification instead.
That's ridiculous. How does stopping people getting an account prevent spam? Unless gmail only allows mail from other people, spammers are probably capable of sending mail from other mail services.
And allowing sign-up by mobile? I'm unimpressed, even other e-mail services without Google's billions have managed the simple functionality of ALLOWING SIGN UP ON THE WEBSITE. Maybe after a crack team of PHDs work on the problem for a few years Google might have that as well. Just like the first basic web mail services had decades ago.
I don't see how Google has so many fanboys whilst they contiuously take the piss out of the users. Making them jump through a hundred times more hoops than anywhere else, for a service which isn't really much better.
If you believe that your public phone number is too much information to give google, then just have a friend sign you up. This is an added feature, not an added restriction. Before you couldn't sign up at all, now you can sign up if you have a phone. Doesn't really seem like anything to lose sleep over.
Yes, but at that point if they find an account spamming, they have instant access to all your other accounts too, thanks to the invitations being sent from an original account.
They can still track it and shut it down easily enough, I would think. Smart of them, they may have solved the spam problem, from a mail carrier's point of view. They haven't kept spam from my inbox yet though. Come on Google, do I honestly need to write filters to stop subjects like "Man f***ing hot blonde"?
So now you have to be neither blind (can't read Captcha) nor deaf (can't talk on a mobile phone therefore can't justify paying a mobile phone's monthly fee) in order to get an invite without already being a regular on geek boards such as this one.
I'm confused as to how "sign-ups only work with U.S. mobile phone numbers" became "only U.S. citizens can register for now". Do you have to prove you're a US citizen to buy a mobile phone in the US now?!
Search better than Thunderbird or Outlook? Much better! It's as if you were searching the web with google! I disagree! I want my wildcard searches. Not everybody remembers in which tense the keyword sought for is specified in mail.
Lone Gunmen crew.
I switched from all email clients to Gmail a year ago, and I've never looked back.
Conversation view is marvellous. I am not talking about threading, I'm talking about about conversations. Seeing what I said, seeing what they said in response, hiding the quoted text... Searching email is also a pleasure. Why standard email clients show you a relevant snippet of text when you search for something when GMail has been doing it for at least a year just defies reasonable explanation. If I search for an email from a professor about a certain project, I don't want to sift through the text of five emails, I want to know which one I want. GMail shows you quickly.
Email - conversations - intelligent search = Dark Ages.
You really haven't used GMail, or you would understand this too. It's a moment of realisation, when you see your disjointed email world come together, is when you see it. It takes about a week, otherwise it's just like every other webmail app, just prettier.
Oh, and Google doesn't need to advertise anything. Word of mouth will do it for them.
So is this registration simply for a gmail account, or for a gmail account that is mobile?
Can simply wait for hotmail and yahoo(well, it is pretty good already) to wake up and introduce smooth AJAX and WYSYIG interface, add more memory, clean up their advertising and spam filters. For a company like Microsoft with billions in cash, it should not be a big deal. So, my guess is if one waits for about 6 months, one does not have to abandon his 9 year old Hotmail account.. Is Microsoft listening? Providing a good interface is a matter of willingness to think about the user and innovate rather than hire rocket scientists. I recently worked on http://www.collaze.com/ and found that any feature I want to give to the user can indeed be implemented in DHTML/Javascript, if you are passionate enough to research and experiment.
Explore your creative side
So where is GMail's WAP? It is kind of sad that I can use Yahoo Mail via WAP, but not GMail.
I realize there are WAP gateways to GMail one could set up on your own server, but why can't they just offer it natively???
This is an obvious attempt to gain personal data. By knowing your mobile number, they will know your area code and also be able to link your google account to anything done via google sms. They've been saying all along, they want to make search more personal.