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  • THURSDAY APRIL 1 2004 6:23 PM

Google Announces New Mail Service

Submitted by jake_lex

Edited by Shal

Google today announced plans to launch GMail, a free, Web-based email service that will offer its users one gigabyte of storage space for their email. This is much more space than any other free email service, and quite a bit more than even some pay services. For example, Yahoo Mail offers 4 megabytes of storage space for free, and offers a "Plus" service that ups storage space to 100MB for about $50.00 a year. Google's service also utilizes the Google search engine to allow users to search emails using keywords.

So what's the catch? In return, you agree to allow Google to scan all incoming emails for keywords that will be used to display ads related to content of the email. For example, if you get an email from a friend about a vacation, an ad from a travel agency might appear. Google claims that this process will be done automatically, and they will not monitor the content of email otherwise, but this could prove to be annoying, privacy issues aside.

Google will soon start rolling out the service to selected testers. Go to the above site to sign up, if you want.

Google Introduces Free E-Mail Service

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Comments
prescience

prescience

Glen Burnie, MD
October 2003

APR 01, 2004 06:31 PM

Still wary of a big pull-back tomorrow myself, they're swearing it's not an April Fools joke.

Google: 'Gmail' No Joke, Lunar Jobs Are

Scopitone

Scopitone

Irvine, CA
OLD SKOOL

APR 01, 2004 06:44 PM

So it is real. surreal

[Edited on May 20, 2004 by Scopitone]

RubberSoul

RubberSoul

Los Angeles, CA
February 2003

APR 01, 2004 07:08 PM

What will they do regarding all the email I get about drug dealing and kiddie porn?

NotoriousCAT

NotoriousCAT

Atlanta, GA
January 2004

APR 01, 2004 07:13 PM

i am so in. a whole gigabyte of storage!!! love

Luis

Luis

Preston, ID
February 2004

APR 01, 2004 07:31 PM

HELL YEAH! \shocked/

Jeff_Fries

Jeff_Fries

Humptulips, WA
September 2003

APR 01, 2004 07:44 PM

Jesus

H

Christ. Just today I was wondering about getting an email address with more storage space A GIG?!?

RubberSoul

RubberSoul

Los Angeles, CA
February 2003

APR 01, 2004 07:48 PM

Jeff_Fries said:
Jesus

H

Christ. Just today I was wondering about getting an email address with more storage space A GIG?!?



Dude, they MONITOR your email!?! You're OK with that?

jake_lex

jake_lex

Lexington, KY
February 2003

APR 01, 2004 08:33 PM

I'm hoping this sort of spurs Yahoo (which is the free mail service I use) to up their space alotment, because I'm really concerned about the way this Google service will scan emails. Not so much for privacy reasons (though that's a very real concern), as for the sheer annoyance factor of it. The ads on this service will probably be far more intrusive and harder to avoid than other services (for example, with Yahoo, it's just a banner ad, like on any other web page, and if you pay, even that ad is gone.)

If you did go for this, I would recommend doing everything in your power to keep that address out of the hands of porn spammers. Which isn't much, I'm afraid. I want more information on what sort of anti-spam measures Google will take.

Jeff_Fries

Jeff_Fries

Humptulips, WA
September 2003

APR 01, 2004 08:37 PM

souljacker said:
Dude, they MONITOR your email!?! You're OK with that?



Dude, according to the post they automatically run your email through software that automatically posts advertising. They're not turing to each other and reading it out loud.

Helter

Helter

Chester, PA
OLD SKOOL

APR 01, 2004 09:06 PM

I can't wait for this. I have a couple of addresses that I don't really care about, but that attract *tons* of email that I don't want to download myself.

Shal

Shal

Los Angeles, CA
October 2002

APR 01, 2004 09:11 PM

souljacker said:

Dude, they MONITOR your email!?! You're OK with that?



All unencrypted email is inherently insecure. Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of a network and a handy-dandy packet sniffer can read your e-mail. Trust me, I used to do it for a living. wink

Any system administrator at your ISP can read your email at any time. So can Hotmail, Yahoo mail, etc, etc. *shrug* If you want it kept secret, don't use unencrypted email.

s5

s5

STAFF

San Francisco, CA

APR 01, 2004 09:14 PM

Shalome said:
All unencrypted email is inherently insecure. Anyone with rudimentary knowledge of a network and a handy-dandy packet sniffer can read your e-mail. Trust me, I used to do it for a living. wink

Any system administrator at your ISP can read your email at any time. So can Hotmail, Yahoo mail, etc, etc. *shrug* If you want it kept secret, don't use unencrypted email.



or put another way, don't write anything in email that you wouldn't write on the back of a post card.

Mike11

Mike11

Titusville, FL
OLD SKOOL

APR 02, 2004 05:03 AM

I think its a great idea.

jake_lex

jake_lex

Lexington, KY
February 2003

APR 02, 2004 09:04 AM

Here's a follow-up story on privacy concerns being raised about Google's mail service. This is a pretty good point:



While Microsoft's Hotmail and Yahoo's Web-based mail service offer 2 or 4 megabytes of storage space, Google's "Gmail" service will offer a gigabyte (1,000 megabytes). That's equivalent to 500,000 pages of e-mails, according to the company -- enough that users might never have to conserve space in their accounts by deleting e-mail. Also, using the search engine technology that made the company famous, Google Gmail account holders will be able to search through the content of their archived e-mails.


But some analysts worried about the security implications of users being able to keep so much of their life and correspondence in one place.


"I think this whole thing could be an electronic noose," said Roger Kay, analyst at IDC. "The more defined you are, the more definable you are, the more you're exposed" to possible security problems, he said.




DesignAddict

DesignAddict

Eugene, OR
June 2003

APR 02, 2004 09:09 AM

at first i thought it might me an april fools joke!

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