gmail

[MinorityReport]

For anybody who wants, but has not yet received, an invitation to open a gmail account (Google's very innovative beta test 1GB webmail offering), here's how to get one free:

http://194.100.210.156/gmail/form

[livius drusus]

I've been avoiding gmail on account of the privacy/data collection issue. I can't say I've followed up on the early stories, however. Are they still implementing the targeted adverts scheme?

[freemonkey]

I've been avoiding gmail on account of the privacy/data collection issue. I can't say I've followed up on the early stories, however. Are they still implementing the targeted adverts scheme?
Yeah, what she said. :q?:

[MinorityReport]

I've no idea. I never see any ads on gmail anyway (if they're there, I must have blocked them) and I have no problems in any case with a computer program that sees the word "meringue" in web content that I'm browsing and decides to put up an ad for a cookbook or something, provided I don't have to make my browser display it.

If I have issues with gmail, it's based on the following points:

There is no POP3 or IMAP access (fortunately now there are powerful mail forward features in the filter)
It isn't spam-proof.

[Snipped discussion of bluebottle because I noticed I've already been banging on about it in the Spyware thread]

[wade-w]

I've no idea. I never see any ads on gmail anyway (if they're there, I must have blocked them) and I have no problems in any case with a computer program that sees the word "meringue" in web content that I'm browsing and decides to put up an ad for a cookbook or something, provided I don't have to make my browser display it.


The issue that liv and freemonkey are refering to is that the data collection isn't done based on what web content you are browsing, but on scanning your e-mail. Also, their privacy policy explicitly states that your mail may persist on their servers even after you've closed your account.

Whether these policies are actually a cause for concern or not, many people are uncomfortable with them.

[MinorityReport]

Your email is web content. Gmail's policy is to conduct dynamic scanning of the email content while it is being displayed, and to post targeted ads while it is being displayed.

On retention, Google has simply stated that it keeps backups. All responsible organizations do this. "We will make reasonable efforts to remove deleted information from our systems as quickly as is practical." Which in practice means that your deleted emails are going to be on backup media for as long as Google believes is necessary to maintain a reliable service. Just like every other well run computer system you ever used. Because of the nature of the backup media and the necessity to maintain archive integrity, your deleted emails cannot be selectively deleted from the archive media.

If you don't want copies of what you write on a computer to remain after you delete the original, avoid using computer networks, turn off the backup functions in your word processor, get rid of your Windows wastebasket feature and replace it with military-standard disk block wiping software. Better yet, don't use a computer. Write your letters on paper, and shred the whole pad to prevent the words being read from the impression of the pen.

[wade-w]

You're not telling me anything I didn't already know. Please note that I never said that these were legitimate issues; I only noted that some people consider this a potential problem. Not everyone is sanguine about having their e-mail indexed and scanned by data retrieval software. There is no need for such a hostile tone.

[MinorityReport]

YThere is no need for such a hostile tone.

My apologies. I am aware of no such tone, even after carefully reviewing my words. but I don't intend to give offence.

[MinorityReport]

A whole hacker community seems to have sprung up around gmail, drawn by the magic word "gigabyte". It is now possible for instance, using free third-party software, to use a gmail account as a mountable network filesystem--a spare 1GB disk drive, one that is available anywhere that has an internet connection.

One may argue that existing systems provide similar facilities--webdav and ftp on free, freely available Spymac accounts provide you with 100MB of storage that is truly portable because it uses standard protocols that are built into modern operating systems. It is also a simple matter to adapt any IMAP mailbox for use as a hierarchical file system--but such systems have not inspired the hacker spirit in quite the same way as Google's magical "gigabyte".

[lisarea]

For some reason, I don't think I've seen ads there for a couple of days. They're not there now, anyway. But yeah, that is their whole business model, so I'm sure this is just temporary. It serves ads based on keyword triggers, and that's how they support the service. If anyone's worried about what they look like, they look just like the AdWords ads you get on a Google search.

I didn't activate my account for quite a while after I got my invite for much the same reasons--I don't need webmail, and I didn't like the parsing. But I decided to mainly out of curiosity, and I have to say I do like it so far. I would never recommend using it as your only email, particularly if you want to maintain any privacy, but I figure there's a far lower bar for webmail. It's all stored on someone else's server, so I wouldn't expect privacy regardless of the provider.

So I figure that, if you want webmail, it's better than the other services out there now. But it's not a replacement for POP mail.

[LadyShea]

I have used web based emails exclusively since...well since always. Even my work email is web based. I am liking GMail really well in comparison so far...though I have had trouble sending a few times. I like the way it separates and tabs sends and replies

Also, their privacy policy explicitly states that your mail may persist on their servers even after you've closed your account.

I think this is probably true of all of them, GMail simply decided to disclose it. livius, you know all the things you can do with this forum, that can be done on all forums, that you chose to disclose and others didn't? I think it's like that.

[livius drusus]

I think this is probably true of all of them, GMail simply decided to disclose it. livius, you know all the things you can do with this forum, that can be done on all forums, that you chose to disclose and others didn't? I think it's like that.

That makes sense, Shea. The advertising based on keywords from your email seemed somewhat different to me than, say, hotmail's crap, because it was so targeted, but I have no idea if MSN searches my email for its own marketing purposes.

[dave_a]

What I don't get is this "The main purpose of this system is to ease the process of obtaining invites from the isnoop.net's great Gmail snoop service."

The site is called I snoop and the mail service is called Gmail snoop.

Given the privacy concerns many have over this service, why make such use of the word snoop? Seems odd.

[viscousmemories]

I know this thread is old and dead, but I'm just now seeing it for the first time.

What worries me about Gmail is the fact that I use Google as my primary search engine, and Google tracks users search history. If I also used Gmail, they could easily combine my search history with my e-mail and create a pretty thorough profile of who I am. A profile that someone, sometime might find a way to use against me.

The chairman of the board of the EFF explains the issues well in this blog entry (http://www.templetons.com/brad/gmail.html).

[Dingfod]

I guess I'm lucky they never got back to me then. I've thought some recently about some of the websites I've frequented since the beginning of the Iraq War might trigger some Homeland security database to start tracking my whereabouts. Just to get the other side of the story, trying to see the big picture, I've visited sites, some Iraqi, some not, that might not be on the patriotic American approved website list, some of them even advocating violence against the invading Americans, etc. Might not be good to be in too many databases, databases that track my search engine usage.

[wade-w]

Once, I very briefly worked for a company called Naviant. Their business was outsourced registration. IOW, if you bought an HP product, for example, when you registered it, you weren't sending the registration directly to HP, it went to Naviant first, where they compiled all of the registrations for that week and formatted them then transmitted them all to HP. When I was offered the position I didn't think anything of it.

Their clients included IBM, Compaq, HP, Apple and Microsoft. The problem is, they didn't just send off the data, they kept a copy of everything as well. So they had the largest database of computer users outside of AOL, and worse, they know exactly what you have. This did not sit well with me, and at this point I had serious qualms about staying there. The final straw came when I found out that they were planning to begin selling this information to enable targeted popup ads. Since these ads never materialzed that I am aware of, something must have happened to their business model. It wouldn't surprise me at all, however, if they weren't using their data to facilitate spam.

One moral of this story is: If you are concerned about your privacy, never under any circumstances register your new hardware or software.