GOOGLE'S EMAIL UNDER FIRE

One view on the controversy surrounding Google's new email system that is about to launch. It provides 1GB of memory for free (i.e. Hotmail gives 2MB and Yahoo! gives 4MB) in return for targeted ads based on the user's email content. Privacy advocates are going nuts on this.

I've been beta testing the service (thanks, anne!... friend at google) and I really don't care about the ads. I don't think they will be intrusive moving forward and the ads are definitely worth 1 GB of memory... 1000MB! Also the email system has some cool functions. When I sent out a mass email to about 50 people yesterday requesting their cellphone numbers since I lost my cellphone and their numbers this past Saturday, it grouped all their responses and my responses together. Similar to having the whole "discussion" in a file cabinet within your inbox. To explain it better, my initial email, all their responses, and my replies were grouped into one line within my inbox. You click on that line and it opens up the whole string of emails, which you could read by clicking through an indexed layer of emails. Sort of like a library card catalog. Very cool. Anyway, the article I was talking about is below:

Gmail and its discontents

CNET News.com
By Declan McCullagh
April 26, 2004


The sharp reaction to Google's announcement of the Gmail service earlier this month underscored a deep divide in the tactics and strategies employed by Internet privacy activists.

Privacy groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., and London-based Privacy International denounced Gmail as an intrusion that must not be permitted to exist. (full article)