Slashdot Mirror
The Downide of Your ISP Turning to Gmail
SlinkySausage writes "Google is offering ISPs the opportunity to turn over their entire email operation to Google, with all customer email hosted as Gmail accounts. This would allow Google to grow its user base rapidly (Google is a distant third with 51M users compared to Yahoo's 250M and Hotmail's 228M). There are some obvious benefits to end users — Google is offering ISPs mailboxes of up to 10GB per user. APCMag.com has posted an interesting piece looking at the dark side of Google's offer. Not least is in its reinforcing of the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes along."
Dont shash eeditors use Forefox? its gut a bilt in spellchcker..
MABASPLOOM!
As opposed to it being so much easier to change your ISP email if it's hosted with your ISP?
:-)
That comment doesn't make any sense.
Just so you know, the latest versions of Firefox have spell-checking built in
I have multiple accounts on Yahoo I don't use anymore because Gmail is so much better, but which I keep around incase there are accounts I signed up for that I forgot to transfer over.
And how strong is Yahoo's protection against fake accounts these days?
hehehe you sed "Downide" :-)
... it was only a matter of time before someone else pointed it out.
Why wouldn't the user just get a gmail account? Who needs the extra 8 gigs of space and the genericISP.com e-mail?
And
I don't see what the difference would be. Whether your email is hosted by your ISP or by Google for your ISP. It's the same account name.
If anything was a problem it would be whether Google would "index" your email so it could target ads at you.
"People will have to switch email addresses" Mother of god, someone stop this company. They will be the end of us all.
The obvious downside is that Microsoft/MSN would lose customers... What, nobody noticed that the article is one ninemsn (Australia's MSN website)? This website has been known to have one-sided (Microsoft's side) stories and "news".
COME ON! Even for people who normally let some "editing" go by uncommented upon. DOWNIDE? I had to read the topic 6 times before I knew that it was downside. (it is downside right?)
They don't know what transitive/intrasitive verbs are either.
...my ISP realized those long names interspersed with hyphens have made me not use any of the emails provided. In contrast I have a simple and easy to type address on the webmail accounts.
And what happens when Google rolls out services competing directly with ISPs?
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
I bought my own domain some time ago. Its a small price to pay for an email address that never changes and you can carry through physical and ISP moves. I haven't figured out what to do with the website (aside from important document backups which are not search engine indexed) but the email service has been great. I do use the catchall service to try to track which companies sell my email address. So far I haven't caught anybody doing anything sneaky, although Prosound Stage and Lighting refuses to take me off their list (don't buy anything from them, you'll never get off the list)
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Philosophy majors or debaters out there must have some fancy term for this kind of misleading argument? Clearly the only thing google is doing here is offering a service to ISPs that will maintain the status quo yet the article author is glossing that over and acting like google will now be responsible for the way ISPs might use what is essentially a software package that doesn't do anything new at all.
i've delt with timer warner/road runners webmail, as well as verizon's webmail. getting gmail would def not be a "downside" =\
Customers who make use of their ISPs email have a significant disincentive to switch ISPs: their email address will change. This is similar to the situation most cellphone customers used to be in before legislation required cellphone providers to implement number portability.
So the cost the ISP will have to consider isn't just the cost of Google mail versus the cost of hosting their own, they'll also have to consider the effect going with Google mail will have on their customer retention rates. ISPs that don't suck will have less of a problem with that.
The ISP can minimize that issue by insisting that the user's email address remain username@ispname.net (or whatever). In other words, Google becomes the MX for ispname.net, and users who use the email service would log in by using their email address as opposed to just their username.
I can see it going either way, but I expect ultimately that Google will offer the service tied to the ISP's domain name, and expect that most ISPs will select that in order to retain the lock-in effect that ISP-specific email has on the customer base. I don't see any advantage to Google of providing their standard Google mail service to ISPs at a lower price than the one tied to the ISP's domain name.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I don't want Google reading and storing my mail in perpetual archives!
I expect the feds love all this consolidated data collection that Google makes so convenient for them.
assuming that someone who misspells or types too fast has ADD just contributes to the stigmas of mental health. stigmas lead to intolerance which leads to hate and gets people beat up and stuff ultimately. go read up on ADD/ADHD at ADDA before you make assumptions.
i maybe be OT, but the OP is ignorant.
If you let Google run your email for you, they will be subject at any moment to forwarding all copies of your email to any government agent that asks for it. And under the terms of the Patriot Act in the USA they can never tell you about it. Google is just another big soul-less mega-corporation that is only too happy to turn in Chinese dissidents as long as it profits.
I like the Berkeley sysadmin attitude a lot. I was talking with those guys recently and they consider themselves the guardian of campus data. If Feds show up waving a Patriot Act letter, there will be a fight over it, not just meekly handing them whatever they want.
IMAP and FORWARDS ring any bells? If there's one thing thing you know about GOOGLE it's just like MSN and Yahoo, they want to own your mindshare they do not want to share.
If the ISP had IMAP support, that'd be a downside right there, since Gmail still doesn't!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
assuming that someone who misspells or types too fast has ADD
My post had nothing to do with a spelling error or fast typing. Maybe you have ADD too?
....is that your spell checker isn't as good any more.
This article seems force itself to make up reasons why this new service could be a bad thing. Whatever. Google may not be the second coming, but they offer some of the most reliable software I've ever used. It also works quickly and seamlessly : gmail and google are both faster than trying to do email and search using applications on my own computer!
The gmail spam filter is also a marvel. For some reason, it isn't talked about much : but in my experience, the spam filter is almost bulletproof. It has caught thousands of spam, with maybe one or 2 false positives that I have noticed. Maybe 10 spam have leaked through in the 2 years I have had gmail.
The charging of isps for this service only makes sense : google needs to have other revenue sources than advertising to be healthy, and they offer a more space than free gmail, which has ads.
This is a good thing. A very good thing. The only potential negative is portable of email addresses : but the ISP is google's customer. Not the end user. If the ISP doesn't want their email to be portable, then google will cater to that. (and the isp owns the domain, in any case)
Why not just let users keep using user@isp.net and just tweak gmail to use that as the primary email address instead of user@gmail.coml. If ISPs are paying for it, who cares about how many gmail addresses people see and just take the money and run.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
I'm paranoid.
This article doesn't seem to put much effort into proving their point. In addition, they seem to completely ignore the possibility of Google forcing ISP mail users to submit to an agreement of their own devising, causing all personal email to be subject to data mining efforts. Whether it be for advertising or for future nefarious purposes, its much more of a downside than is "no domain name portability (boo-hoo)".
-d
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
stereo types do not cause intolerance, but taking them seriously does.
Since so few people seem to be RTFA...
1. Google announces that ISP's will be able to release a google-apps branded for their users. This includes domain management, docs, spreadsheets, calendar, web page creator, gmail, and 24 hour phone support.
2. MSN Austrailia points out that the ISP's will have to pay for the service. MSN Austrailia also points out that Google will tie users to their ISP account / domain instead of a more generic Google account. And they point out that Google's smallest ISP size bracket, 0 - 200,000 users, covers nearly all of the ISPs in Austrailia.
MSN Austrailia also takes pains to poke jabs at competing ISP's, specifically leaves out information, and otherwise sounds a lot like FUD.
The ______ Agenda
Holy shit, I logged into my old Hotmail account the other day. God damn was that a painful experience. Hundreds of spams in the inbox. You can't even view the full headers of an email anymore. Fucking Windows Live bullshit sucks on Firefox. I hope Hotmail dies a quick, painful death, along with Microsoft just for the hell of it. Fucking cancers of the Internet, like MySpace.
This will be good for DoubleClick. They won't have to get into your machine anymore to get your contact list. Sure hope Google's laptop doesn't get stolen.
What?
>>(Google is a distant third with 51M users compared to Yahoo's 250M and Hotmail's 228M.
Sure, because Gmail is still in Beta and not open to free-range registration. The key difference is that one in three Gmail accounts are the same user squatting (I have at least six), whereas three in five Hotmail accounts are spammers. Perhaps three in five Yahoos are legit... so I imagine the numbers are more like: (my personal in parens)
17M Google (6 and a Google-for-your-domain)
91M Hotmail (2)
150M Yahoo (1)
Plus I have a couple with my ISP, and a personal e-mail domain, and half a dozen non-email domains.
No wonder I always post Anonymous Coward... have a hell of a time remembering who I am at any moment!
The new google partner program doesn't just benefit corperations. There is a very tempting for educational institutions aswell http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/edu_be nefits.html with benefits such as being free.
. html. One of the more beneficial changes for us was that students don't have their email expire after they graduate.
My university was plagued by unrelieability in several of its web services. After we made the transition there has been significantly reduced downtime for endusers http://www.acu.edu/news/2007/070410_google_launch
There are only a few drawbacks to the switch I've seen sofar. Migrating from one email server to another is not always easy. For us, it involved basically doing multiple pop3 fetches to move old email. The other drawback I've noticed is, while google may boast higher reliability, there is still one crucial piece that may have problems from time to time, Single Sign On (SSO). Google has to be able to cooperate with your SSO server sucessfully to syncronize properly.
The most interesting side effect I've noticed is that professors nolonger have any reason not to accept the odf and ods file formats, thanks to Google Docs&Spreadsheets. Definate boost for open file formats.
...is that I'm glad I'm not using an email service that is not the most popular,,,
SBC offered their Internet customers the option of switching from their own Prodigy provider to Yahoo email. I declined for obvious reasons (privacy primarily), but switching ISP's is trivial for me because most of my email is sent to Spamex.com email addresses of my choosing such as Whatever_I_Want@spamex.com and all I have to do to switch ISP's is just change the redirection of my Spamex email forwarding account.
;-), all I really want is a webhost with shell access, lots of cheap webspace, enough bandwidth for my needs (a few TB's per month plus decent download speeds), and none of the GUI interface nonsense and all the fancy web applications that most web hosts provide these days. All I want is the type of account a university student or professor might have at their institution for example. Anyone know of any *Nix/BSD based webhosts offering this type of bare-bones service? Thanks.
I also even purchased some cheap webhosting space so that I could run my own mail server and have as many email accounts that were independent of my ISP as I want. By the way, in my opinion StartLogic.com sucks really badly, but BlueHost.com has everything I want and more and works great. BlueHost is the only cheap webhost I know of that offers free SSH shell access.
While I'm off the topic
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
"(..) making it harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes along."
So... Setting up Outlook Express with the phone support poses too much of a challenge? POP3 not doing it for ya? Hell, I can even ask GMail to import mails as POP3 from my other Gmail App addresses (or the other way around). AFAIR, Google touted this as being "pro-consumer", for the reason that there's no lock in to Gmail, nor Gmail for your domain.
Of course, a case can be made for them reinforcing the binding by being excessively aweXome, but we can hardly blame them for it.
That's the problem with monopolies period.
When it comes to data like email there should be a choice of providers, your data should be easy to back up and you should keep multiple backups preferably geographically spaced far apart.
I'm not too worried about email though. Many providers provide email and there's even a choice between free mail providers. I use pop to store it and web mail at my ISP to read sometimes.
Now usenet is another story. Find me another decent usenet reader/posting software that's free.
I hate relying on Google and it's been buggy as hell lately.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
How is the fact that you would be using your ISP's domain name a downside to Google Apps Partner Edition? That makes no sense.
Whether your ISP is hosting its e-mail services on Google Apps, Windows Live Mail, their own servers or wherever else, this same problem is present. This isn't a problem with Google Apps Partner Edition, this is a problem with ISP supplied e-mail services period.
Privacy issues would be a much more valid concern IMHO.
http://watching-eyes.blogspot.com/
That way they can get the articles spell-checked.
I don't think they have a logic-check yet though.
Anyone who wants actual IMAP e-mail rather than some shitty web interface (if you've chosen your ISP wisely, that is)?
I think for most users, they could stick to around 2 GB, however, I believe adding another 10 MB to their 10 MB max attachement size would make a lot of users happy. Sharing digital photos is popular these days, and with the modern OMG 6 Megapixels! cameras and users not that technically minded, it's easy for them to slip out large photos, even when compressed to jpg. Of course, the proper "solution" is to teach the users, but still, it would help for sharing digital media in any shape greatly if they just added a little to that 10 MB limit. And also give them some added advantage there compared to the competition.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I really don't see how this would work that great, unless Google supplies the ISP the ability to change passwords, add email id's and such. This would have work with the ISP's current software, etc. (blah blah)
;)
I work at a rather large ISP, and I really don't see the advantages. First off, customers always forget passwords, they already get 10MB of space per email account, and we allow 6 total, per account. (6x10=60MB)
The actual problem, is the people that just use the webmail interface, vs using a email client.(outlook, thunderbird, mac mail, etc) They use the email server as a storage space for picture attachments and such and they run out of space. Yep, over quota. Normally I explain to them that they are better off using a email client that actually downloads the mail to their computer, thus the quota issue won't effect them. Also, I recommend a good spam filter, besides the one we provide.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
You sir provide a poor service to your customers.
And yes, I'm sure Google has thought of the password issue.
Actually, Google has changed this limit - I don't know when, but their "Help Center" page about this subject was updated about one week ago; now we can attach files up to (aprox.) 20MB:
e r=8770
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answ
- They already host all websites (Google Cache). Since they already got storage, check-out, advertising, a HTML-editor(they might need an extra acquisition to really pursue this successfully), statistics and forms (Google grid), it is a small step for them to offer free hosting with all the tools you need. So the costs remain the same but the income doubles
- Offering free hosting will offer Google huge cost savings in processor-capacity and bandwidth. That is because they don't have to crawl sites anymore, because they already got them! This will save them exactly 25 times the size of a site, per site in terms of bandwith.
- They can even better trace users and thus increase advertising accuracy and income.
- Google does not only want to control Awareness and Interest of end-users, but also Trial and Adoption, so they can make money on purchases as well (Google check-out), not only advertising.
- Huge investments in storage, capacity and double-click are enabling them to do so
- Offering end-users bandwidth and connectivity, will dramatically increase Google's' ability to track behavior and allows them to be even more efficient
- Being better in advertising and having more economies of scale allows Google to compete successfully with the ISP's
So their actions over the last few years are completely logical from this perspective. From an ISP's perspective and an end-user perspective they are (or should) be terrifying.I think ISPs will always want 100% control over all their services (whether this benefits the user is debatable...)
and Google is evil! Mod post as troll! :)
Three ways to get a lifetime address:
I prefer my pobox.com address over my university's alumni address because the latter assigns a letter-and-number userid I've never liked. I could always start using my gmail.com address instead, under the presumably-safe assumption Google and GMail will be around for a long time, but as a firm believer in TANSTAAFL I can't believe that GMail and/or forwarding mail to another address will remain free forever. Meanwhile, Pobox has a more than ten-year history and counting with better than 99.44% uptime. Even were I to switch to GMail for my day-to-day email access as opposed to the Emacs-based mailer I've been using for more than a decade, I suspect I'd still give out my pobox.com address instead of the gmail.com one.
If you prefer gaining a permanent address by supporting a worthy nonprofit, two possibilities are IEEE and the Free Software Foundation. Each costs annually considerably more than $20, of course; if FSF would offer some sort of lifetime membership for a reasonable sum I'd probably do it, though.
The key problems I have with all these wonderful "let's use the web" concepts are twofold:
Redundancy? What am I going to do if Google decides to take a day off? And how am I going to use email and Google collab/office tools offline, on, say, a laptop while travelling?
Confidentiality? The US and UK are busy as it is eradicating any last bit of privacy we have (latest evidence at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6675335.stm), so I'm not terribly keen on helping them out even more, especially since there's enough evidence out there that the US is not shy of abusing its espionage network to give US companies the advantage.
Email is already very much like sending a postcard (I'm staggered by how few people realise this), I can't really see the sense in making it even easier to risk my customers' confidentiality.
Which leads me to another point: I wonder what conflicts there exist between Data Protection and privacy and the use of Google services like this. You may be accidentaly breaking the law as there's nothing to bind Google contractually to the same provisions you are subject to..
Cute idea but risks galore..
I think the risk is sufficiently small that it doesn't really matter.
I've been using Gmail, and before that Yahoo ever since I lost all access to my ISP email account when, without notification, BT Openworld decided to ban me for leaving my 56k on overnight (the horror). Since then its been Webmail all the way, my ISP address is only used when I need to get access to nag sites - but then I am with Plusnet, spam in the inbox was nothing new!
I'd have thought though ISP's would see this service as a threat to their 'Lock-In' if Google presumably lets users access accounts after they have broken off from the ISP, even if certain premium stuff gets disabled. I know loads of people who have had business cards printed with their ISP emails on them etc, and now are locked in with shoddy ISP's as they can't be bothered to go around updating everyone, printing out new card's etc. Yes they are stupid to get into that situation, but there's an awful lot of silly people.
I believe my logic professor once called this type of misleading argument by the following name: Bullshit.
Gmail is a nice service but I'd never use it for anything serious: it loses emails (very rare, but it happened to me) and it's definitely not trustworthy. People simply don't realize the dangers of letting a single company and its government tracking the flow of most emails in the world. I don't trust them and the day my ISP switches to gmail is the day I put my own mail server at home. Spam will become a huge problem, but I'm prepared to deal with it.
Think it might have something to do with all those MS/MSN ads that I see on their site? If MS is really trying to buy Yahoo, then the last thing that they need is Google coming along and suddenly grabbing a HUGE percentage of that market. In fact, if MS could, they would probably buy nothing BUT Yahoo Mail. Right now, MS wants to make MS Live be their strategy to beating Google.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I know you know this, but Gmail has POP3 access. Not as cool as IMAP, but it's Good Enough for me (keep all my mail online when I'm travelling, then download it onto my home computer when I'm at home).
Undernet will not let you register a nick name from a Google mail account. My ISP, Qwest, really thought that they were going to get me to use a msn account on my Linux box. I'm not sure if it is even possible but I've been bitten too many times by the M$ beast to ever want to try again. There are other places that don't like you using 'free' email services either.
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
In 2002-2004, I worked at company designing and coding software for a hardware system sold to the feds and commercial. Basically, a high speed ( for commercial site; OC-48 speeds ) packet snooper with the ability to read, copy, and modify in real time with out detection on either end. During that time, I was privy to a few insights. In particular, a major spammer had made the mistake of approaching our local CLEC and offering a deal. They wanted bandwidth, IPs from their customer's DHCP pool, and harvested e-mail addresses. Turned out that they were currently doing this with MSN . Apparently, They were paying 1-2 million/month to do this, but MSN told them that it was to jack up to more than 5 mill/month. Since this CEO hated spam, they turned it down almost right away ( Richter made the mistake of approaching the CEO of a company who was friends with BG; the rest is history ). Supposedly, one of the execs asked him why not approach others, and he said that they were already using others including Yahoo.
I was just thinking about the direction Google seems to be headed concerning privacy. They collect IP addresses related to search queries, and perhaps browsing to sites with Google ads. That isn't news. They have a good idea of what you like, where you go, when, and why. Then their Gmail service takes all of that and ties it into who you talk to, when, and about what, and further archives all of it. Also not news.
They offer their Google Earth and Desktop applications for download. Each of these seemingly useful applications are in a perfect position to record what applications are run and when, but that could just be frank paranoia.
However an IP address even resolved to give the domain name still only shows a general ISP and perhaps a general location.
If ISPs begin to use Gmail as their primary mail service what new specific information will Google gain? Exact city? Name (ISPs such as roadrunner by default use the actual account name for the primary email user name, for example BJohnson38). Combine that with the above information and it may be possible for Google to pin point the identity of someone just surfing the web.
That gives possibly a single location for government and law enforcement to obtain information, it also gives a single source to share or leak such information.
While the company itself may be against turning over information, they still have humans working for them, humans that can hold a grudge for a rude support request (I've had a couple ISPs/webhosts delete all my email when I complained about the level of service for simple problems), humans that can screw up. Hmm I wonder if I can compress user data to tunnel faster using AJAX and improve Gmail performance... oops where did the data just get sent to, uhh, damn.
Maybe all paranoia, maybe not. I'm not a mind reader and I can only make reasonable guesses towards certain future events. It still makes me uneasy to be setting Google up as the parent, responsible for everything, when it seems all too common for parents to neglect the well being of their children for personal gain, and we all should know those with the most trust will cause the most damage if that trust is misplaced.
Just a few things to think about, hope I'm not redundant by now.
-Musfuut
First, the feds can (and will) ask any and all ISPs for their e-mail. And they have to comply. But Google is the one who has fought to make certain that it was above board and legal. If you are a small ISP, then you can not fight this. But companies like Google can put up enough of a fight that the feds WILL back down esp if illegal. Until all e-mail is sent encrypted and point-to-point, the feds will be able to trivially get what they want.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah, Pop3 that largely ignores the POP client's requests to leave mail on the server or delete mail when emptied from trash. That whole 30 day old switch sucks too as it breaks a lot of portable devices that continuously download 30 days worth of pop mail. So basically, multiple pop clients checking the same gmail account blows.
I have ADD, and your posts just don't make any sense. Making non sequitur arguments is not a symptom of ADD. Do you even know what it is?
Laziness? Goddamn, do I hate that word.
Why is outsourcing a complex system like email/calendar to a known and proven provider with one of the best data-centres in the world deemed to be 'laziness'? Isn't the whole point that it is cheaper and/or better than the ISP doing it themselves, and hence good business, and will benefit their users?
Laziness? Yeah, I much prefer software where I really have to work to get any kind of results.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to bang in a nail - hand me that fist.
...and I can't imagine ISP Gmail would be much different.
...So, what's the downside (or "downide" as the write-up says) of having a fast, modern, effective way to message folded directly into your Internet access? I just don't get it.
I think the write-up is alarmist. How does an ISP's choice of mail infrastructure have any "downside" that makes it harder to switch ISPs? Because the features of your old ISP with Google Mail are too compelling? Help me, help me! Pure blatherscythe.
Google mail content can pumped through POP for access through any regular mail end-client (Blackberry, Outlook, whatever), so there's no flexibility issue unless you were married to fetching your messages exclusively with Pine.
I love having Google Mail for my own domain. It's one of the few Google products out of "beta" and it deserves to be acknowledged that the service rocks.
These stories are free but worth money.
Rogers in Canada already outsources it's email to Yahoo!. I hope they take notice of this offer and switch - GMail is far superior to Yahoo! mail - even the newer AJAX-ified client.
Acutally, an ISP from Argentina has been offering 10 gb gmail accounts for over a year, so, in our case, it's not much of a news. You can check their site here http://www.flash.com.ar/cable_home.asp
People using nofrills ISP (e.g. NetZero) might see something like this, but I doubt you'll see any of full service ISPs switching to Google mail. Their customers are unlikely to keep paying the higher price to have the services they're paying that price for replaced with web apps they could get for free. In my own case, for instance, POP3 access to my e-mail is one of the reasons I'm paying a bit more for Worldnet.
One downside of Gmail is that, though they do use SMTP for outgoing mail, it is on a non-standard port. If you use any program that cannot set the port for SMTP, then Gmail will not work. Things like motion sensing network cameras and uninteruptable power supplies sometimes have emailing programs that cannot change the smtp port.
Flash, one of the largest Argentine broadband ISP has been offering Google-powered 10Gb e-mail addresses for months now. But the addresses are theirs (@flash.com.ar or similar) so you are stuck with them as if they were using their servers.
I have ADD, and your posts just don't make any sense. Making non sequitur arguments is not a symptom of ADD. Do you even know what it is?
I have, and it's very sad that you don't take a joke at face value. The fact I said "ADD", as a part of the joke, doesn't mean I qualify people with ADD to be this or that. Just like if I say someone's an idiot, I don't qualify the medical condition, and what actual idiots behave like.
You need to relax, but, then again, maybe this is hard for people with ADD.
PS: I have a form of ADD too. However, so what ?!
Are these active users (logged on within the last month) or total users? I represent 7 of Yahoo's 250M users but only 2 of gmail's 51M. The reason being that when I registered for all those Yahoo accounts: 1. there was no gmail 2. they only offered 5MB of storage
If it's going to be a paid-for service (directly funded by the ISP) then presumably having an ad-free display is one of the customisation options that ISPs are being offered to differentiate themselves.
Thus, Google will not necessarily be "searching" your email (if by that you mean having some kind of dumb script matching keywords to show you somewhat relevant ads).
And you probably shouldn't be using ANY unencrypted mail service for anything where confidentiality is important.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
I, for one, welcome the new Gmail overlords. Here's why:
I had a DSL account with AT&T/SBC/Yahoo in Connecticut. The e-mail address is @snet.net. I have similar accounts for my wife and daughter.
I recently moved to Ohio, and pickup up a new DSL subscription from AT&T/SBC/Yahoo. At the time, I asked about keeping my old e-mail addresses. I was told, "no problem". I spoke with tech support when I put my DSL modem online, and they said the transfer would be taken care of.
After about two months, the old e-mail addresses were "suspended", evidently because they were no longer "linked" with an active DSL account. After EIGHT attempts (phone, e-mail, IM) to get this fixed, I have been given a combination of contradictory answers, finger-pointing, and "the runaround". Level 2 tech support seems to have no avenue of escalation to get this fixed. One of the more common answers goes like this: "We can register e-mail addresses from ANY other SBC domain, EXCEPT the SNET.NET region.
I managed to persuade a level 2 tech to "un-suspend" my e-mail accounts, but she warned me, "They're just going to get re-suspended in two months..." Now, THAT'S customer service!!!
The problem seems to be related to some kind of internal billing software issue. Evidently, the left hand is unable to work cooperatively with the right hand. AT&T/SBC bought SNET several years ago. If they can't move a customer smoothly across domains, they need a wholesale reorg of IT until they can operate like one company.
Gmail can't possibly be any worse than AT&T/SBC/Yahoo. NEVER, EVER RELY ON AT&T/SBC/YAHOO FOR E-MAIL. THEIR MIND-BOGGLING STUPIDITY MAKES THEM UNSUITABLE FOR RUNNING AN E-MAIL SYSTEM. I honestly don't think Google can be any worse. And besides, Gmail works reasonably well on my Blackberry.
What about offering GMail to companies for their own employees? I understand most companies wouldn't want Google hosting their data, so how about a GMail appliance?
I try not to do it often or with anything sensitive, because again, I know my company probably doesn't want Google hosting their data, but when I really need to be able to find something again, I send it to my GMail account. There, a single search will bring it up in under a second, vs. a 20 minute search through Outlook that may or may not find anything (when we were on GroupWise, it was more like five minutes, and it would be found).
I've never used an ISP email address. Many years ago I used a pobox.com forwarding address as my public email address. These days I use gmail and the IMAP server associated with my Dreamhost web hosting account. I don't even think about my DSL provider and I never check the email account they provided. I've switched between cable modem & DSL several times and never even think about it. I want them to provide my connectivity and nothing else.
..improve up in access speed? If the mail servers are being run by the ISPs which are closer to the users than Google mail servers, this should greatly increase access time as well right?
Google won't even use IMAP, what on earth would I want from a large userbase using POP3? Get rid of it, Google. Grow with the times...
They screwed up my name and then said there was no way they could fix it- it would be permanently mispelled.
Ever since then, I've used yahoo, and hotmail. I probably have four or five hotmail accounts. One being the "throwdown" account for spammers.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Business pack under $10, 250GB storage and 2.5TB transfer.
http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=9087186
Subject says it all. That was the biggest waste of time ever. No details, no real facts, no real reasoning one way or the other. It was all fluff just to meet some stupid writers quota. Lame.
Honestly, nowadays, it's hard to imagine Google being able to price Gmail high enough that ISPs will think they can do it cheaper, better, in-house. Running email services is one of the worst shit jobs you can find in technology. Good, competent people who can actually do it right aren't cheap, because the work sucks. Keeping clueless users safe from spam and viruses (something you're actually expected to do, no matter how much they like to click on .exes from strangers who claim to be selling porno) is labor-intensive, no matter how much you automate it, just keeping up is a bitch. And the storage, CPU, and network resources required to keep things going will be increasing (faster and faster) indefinitely.
Every ISP in the world would be happy to unload their email problems on someone else. I expect Google will find a lot of takers, even if they gouge them a bit. FWIW, at least Gmail gets more things right than most ISPs.
(Note that running your own personal inbound mailserver still isn't that bad. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about large ISPs running mail farms for tens- or hundreds-of-thousands of users. I've been there, and will never touch the shit again. Hell, when I did it things were a lot easier than they are now, because the spam deluge hadn't even really started and users didn't expect all their attachments to be virus-scanned and their mail to be collaboratively filtered.)
Game... blouses.
"Google is a distant third with 51M users compared to Yahoo's 250M and Hotmail's 228M"
Of course, once you remove all the spambot-created accounts, all the users with multiple accounts, and all the long-since dormant abandoned accounts, Yahoo and Hotmail are probably both inflating their number of accounts tenfold - or more.
I've always advocated that our customers, most of whom I know personally, use ISP independent email services for the obvious reasons. I tell them that, at some point, they may want to move to a different ISP as we only offered dialup. Some took my advice and some didn't. Since we're small, I've allowed some folks to retain their email addresses with us even though they've moved on. That doesn't work with the big boys, though.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
In my opinion, the new Yahoo! mail is better than Gmail in terms of usability. It is more conventional, the interface is more like your desktop mail programs such as Outlook and Thunderbird. Gmail, on the other hand, has some new features like how the mails are organized to attract new users. There is no reason to bash one over the other.
Ron Paul was right about 9/11: GB-I, Clinton, and GB-II kept infidel troops on holy ground and bombed Iraq.
Okay, that's good, let's operate with the assumption that having U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, and securing the safety of aircraft enforcing the No Fly Zone, are why 9-11 happened.
Now, you're George W. Bush on September 12th, 2001. You have to implement a plan to resolve both those problems. Your advisers come back with two ideas:
1) Immediately end enforcement the No Fly Zone and withdraw all forces from the Arabian Peninsula.
It still hasn't changed since 1991 that the countries of the Arabian Peninsula are unable to defend themselves against the Iraqi army, so the prediction of all the analysts is that Saddam Hussein will become ruler of said peninsula within twenty-four months of withdrawal, in some cases directly, in some cases through intimidation and satellitization. With Iraq controlling the oil not just of Iraq, but also Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, Iraq will control about half of all exportable oil in the world, making it economically impossible for the U.N. sanctions regime or inspections to be maintained. Control over Mecca and Medina will similarly make it politically impossible for such sanctions to stay in place, since every Muslim country will have to ignore them. With no sanctions or inspections and a huge increase in oil revenue, Iraq will easily be able to resume and complete its nuclear program. By 2007, Saddam Hussein will rule over a nuclear-armed state that dominates the Middle East and can unilaterally disrupt the world economy.
2) Remove Saddam Hussein from power and replace him with a new government that will not pursue nuclear arms of the conquest of the Arabian Peninsula, allowing an end to sanctions and a withdrawal of forces from the Arabian Peninsula that does not give a psychopath nuclear weapons or unilateral control over the world economy.
You see?
Anybody who asserts both that our presence in Saudi Arabia motivated 9/11 and that we shouldn't have invaded Iraq after 9/11 is saying that we would be better off today if Saddam Hussein was, at this moment, armed with nuclear weapons and had control of half the world's oil exports.
And Ron Paul is one of the people who asserts both.
I never said I took offense (I don't). I was just commenting that your jokes don't make sense. Do you have tourettes or something?
For an ISP, it's important to retain your customers and provide them a reliable email-service and Webmail interface.
Just passing on this critical part of an ISP to a big player like google, waters down your ISP offerings and you loose control over your customers, the ability to charge for added services, and not to mention the security.
Do you really trust moving all your customer emails to google? When customer xyz calls up about their email, do you really want to tell them to call google because as the ISP you have no control?
Just as Google sees the value in retaining customers, email, data, power, so should you as an ISP.
We develop Email-server & Webmail solutions based on Linux called @Mail, and have a lot of experience consulting ISP's in this area.
Does anyone know if this is actually going to be the naming convention that they offer? Right now, I use GMail for Your Domain, and I receive email at me@mydomain.com. Google just hosts the mail server. I still have complete control over my domain, and I can change my MX record any time. Isn't possible that they will offer the same setup to the ISPs?
Also, people who use an ISP-based email address are going to discover they can't take it with them sooner or later. Anyone who wants a permanent address should really invest in their own domain.
Long live the Speaker Bracelet
Rolo D. Monkey