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Google Launches AMP For Email To Bring Web-like Actionable Content To Gmail (venturebeat.com)
Google today announced an extension of the AMP (accelerated mobile pages) program to include another popular communications medium. From a report: The internet giant unveiled the Gmail developer preview of AMP for email, a web-like experience designed to make emails more engaging and interactive. One of the key benefits of AMP for email will be that content within an email can be updated, and recipients will be able to browse email content much like they would a web page. So an email from Pinterest, for example, could contain actionable content, allowing users to Pin content to their own Pinterest account without leaving Gmail. Or they could complete a form to arrange a meeting, fill in a questionnaire, and do just about anything -- all from within the email itself. It's clear that marketers will be a major target audience here.
sent via email talking, but no, God no. Do not want.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Another major bandwidth hog and malware assault vector.
Just stop trying to create technologies that do the same thing as what established standards already do, but in a sillier way.
Email should be a flat, inert, self-contained message. Links if you need them, but otherwise *stop*
I will make sure my email client strips this shit out along with all the images people seem to think belong in email WTF, FAIL!
a web-like experience designed to make emails more engaging and interactive
And the world said as one: fuck that.
This option is still available for some newsletters, and I use it.
Words can not explain how much I do not want this.
I know it is only Tuesday, but I am calling this as worst tech idea of the week.
First law of people: People are generally stupid.
Didn't we go through this before with HTML, remote content, scripts and the like in email? That worked out so well, after all.
So that means that when I open my e-mail I'll get the following:
1. A giant full-screen video ad
a. Or a giant full screen asking me to please turn off my ad blocker
2. Fifty tracking cookies
3. JavaScript to set custom scroll bars
4. Four bit-coin mining ads
5. And finally, a drive by offering to fix all of my computer problems by encrypting my hard drive.
Fuck you, Google.
Gmail is actually WAY more secure than having your average user run a desktop client, but this is idea will lead to security compromised, guaranteed.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Like quick replies, there are people that will love this and there are the rest of us. It didn't take long for that toggle to appear. Hopefully the collective outcry will make this optional pretty quickly. I don't want my email to be "interaction."
Except I never asked for this. And I don't see it having any affect on my life.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I only POP my mail from Gmail -- and read all my mail in text-only mode, except for those occasional ones that only use HTML (frelling sigh). I only actually log into Gmail to empty the trash, and permanently everything, as POP only seems to move downloaded mail there (again, sigh). For me, email contains static information and 99.9% of my email gets read and deleted, I don't need or want to have to go back to review possibly updated dynamic content -- give me a link for any of that and I'll review it in my browser.
The article mentions possible desirable uses for this (below) but in general I give this a *BIG* No Thank You.
“Many people rely on email for information about flights, events, news, purchases, and beyond,” noted Gmail product manager Aakash Sahney. “With AMP for Email, it’s easy for information in email messages to be dynamic, up-to-date, and actionable.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Some would say that this violates the "do one thing, do it well" prescription for building quality applications.
That is, until remembering that Google is not a technology company, they are an advertising company. Their revenue base is literally dependent upon how frequently they assault your eyeballs. Everything Google does is to make money off of forcing you to look at stuff.
Hopefully Google will vet the advertisements so that nothing gets through that is not hurtful of otherwise does not conform to Google's social re-ordering mission.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Outlook and Thunderbird don't show pictures by default. The added content just ensures that some spammer knows that a user actually saw their email at the very least. This would be very useful in targeted attacks, where one wants to find what someone's IP is, perhaps to DDoS them.
Of all the things to screw around with, E-mail isn't one of them. We already went through at least two "active content" cycles, one being VB scripts (I Love You worms), and HTML with its Web bugs, beacons, tracking stuff, etc. All AMP is going to add is more network and storage bandwidth taken for ads/malvertising. It won't improve anything for daily use.
a feature whose primary uses will be to make spam more annoying and phishing more surreptitious
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
Simple HTML-based e-mail is obnoxious enough, why would people actually want this?
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
At what point does email just replicate the functions of a web browser and thus is no longer "email?" STOP TRYING TO MAKE MY EMAIL INTO A WEB PAGE. It's like the salesman who won't just drop off his brochure and instead talks to you for ten minutes; it's"engaging and interactive" but in a way that causes URGE TO KILL RISING.
So now I have to keep all email, just in case someone decides to add a tid bit to it? What happens when I delete an email and then some moron decides there was more to say, or to correct some spelling error or what ever? Will I get a new email with the mark ups or is it dead to me since I deleted the original? This seems like an attempt to do something "new" just for the sake of saying you did something at all.
Google saves, complies, and sells the contents of every email. I don't know how email could be *less* secure.
You and your parents post are discussing entirely different subjects, even though they both use similar words.
I believe afidel was referring to the risk to the security of your local computer being greater if using a desktop client versus gmail. That may be debatable, but there are some good supporting facts for that.
You are referring to information security, or the risk of your personal email data being exposed to others.
While you do have a point (google can read all unencrypted emails and provides stats and such to advertisers), I'd still wager that your data is more secure on gmail servers than many other services. There's a wide range of email setups, but they typically fall in the range of: ... and there are mixes in between each of those (ex. you can use gmail and download all mail to local client).
a) admin your own server and leave mail on server
b) use some 3rd party email provider (your ISP, a paid for service, etc), and download mail to read locally with local email client
c) use some webmail provider, like gmail
Which of those provides the most security to the average users data, and to the average users PC? I think the big names in webmail fill that role, from fastmail to outlook.com to gmail. And if you admin your own server, you'd better be damned good at it, and good luck with your spam filter (though obscurity does helps here).
Will there be enough text left in the body of the email for a text-based client to even work anymore? Not that I'm worried about it - I suspect the same people who will use AMP to send email are the ones I wouldn't want to read anyway.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
marketers is a synonym for scammers.
Outlook and Thunderbird don't show remote pictures by default.
FTFY.
Google is eager to stress that this isn’t a purely Google-focused product — the company wants other email client providers to embrace it.
Fuck off, Google. Just fuck off!
Active
Malware
Present
thanks for at least naming it correctly.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I'm sure some idiots is salivating at this. The max an email should contain is an attachment. All else should be plain text.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I was talking about a proxy for images to a few people so spammers could not know if images were downloaded by active email addresses. Few months later google did it. Same thing happened when I was discussing my phone auto looking up business numbers etc when they call that are not saved on your phone (think mechanic etc).
Tell me again how Google are the good guys. It just gets both funnier and sadder every time someone tries.
Secure for the ads. Thats all that gets security.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Annoying. They mean annoying. Like my gmail inbox isn't already clogged with an endless litany of companies I talked to once, terrible tech recruiters working out of India and notifications from people I'm not interested in hearing from. At this rate I may as well just ditch email and go back to old-fashioned snail mail. At least then it costs the sender something to talk to me.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It has to be. It's a whole new level of stupid, never before seen.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Requiem for the American Dream
Scammers are higher in the social order.
Requiem for the American Dream
OK, let's say you have a court order for discovery, or you're in a government agency that receives a FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) request for old emails. You may have the original "container" email but the content could easily have changed. How will courts handle this?
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
It sounds like they are reviving part of the failed Google Wave project...
They have disrupted industries and improved overall Internet services in doing so. I remember when webmail services had a limit of 15MB, when office suites were not really affordable, when search was filled with obnoxious advertising, when online storage services were massively expensive.
They have provided significantly better services, for free. The competition have in turn had to remain competitive and in turn, made the web significantly cheaper, accessible and usable for the vast majority out there.
Google have done plenty wrong too, but your question was specifically how they are "the good guys".
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
And I guess I'm still waiting for the answer.
You already have one. They've changed much of the online industry for the better in many instances.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Two out of your four are "storage got cheaper" which was happening long before Google came around and kept happening. Google might have sped things up a bit by being aggressive, but that's all.
Searching being full of advertising... well, it still is, but thanks to Google 90% of it is hidden beneath the surface. Like an iceberg.
They did Google Docs right.
Google saves, complies, and sells the contents of every email. I don't know how email could be *less* secure.
Google does nothing of the sort. Google doesn't give your email content to anyone; Google's mail servers scan your email and use the content to decide what ads to show you in the Gmail interface. That's it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.