Is Gmail Evil?
Just like the physical world, venturing out into cyberspace involves risk. You never know when you might get mugged, scammed or framed.
Which brings us to Gmail . . . First of all, I am huge fan of Google. It is one of those things that changed my life so completely that I can't really remember how life was without it. However, I can't help being suspicious of Gmail for the following reasons:
1) Their retention policy is creepy to say the least.
2) So, apparently "no human will read emails" which is good. However, creepy crawly dataminers going through my emails is hardly comforting.
3) We all know that there is nothing like a free lunch. You are paying for the "Free" 1GB of space by selling your personal information to unknown entities.
4) Lastly, you can't protect yourself from Gmail by just saying NO. If I reply to a gmail account (from my friends who have fallen to the dark side), Gmail will ignore my right to privacy and scour my email for sellable information.
In the face of this damning evidence, there are some who are still unphased. It is of little comfort that most of the other major players in the business (Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail) have similar policies.
So, what are the alternatives?
Which brings us to Gmail . . . First of all, I am huge fan of Google. It is one of those things that changed my life so completely that I can't really remember how life was without it. However, I can't help being suspicious of Gmail for the following reasons:
1) Their retention policy is creepy to say the least.
2) So, apparently "no human will read emails" which is good. However, creepy crawly dataminers going through my emails is hardly comforting.
3) We all know that there is nothing like a free lunch. You are paying for the "Free" 1GB of space by selling your personal information to unknown entities.
4) Lastly, you can't protect yourself from Gmail by just saying NO. If I reply to a gmail account (from my friends who have fallen to the dark side), Gmail will ignore my right to privacy and scour my email for sellable information.
In the face of this damning evidence, there are some who are still unphased. It is of little comfort that most of the other major players in the business (Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail) have similar policies.
So, what are the alternatives?
10 Comments:
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hmm.. gmail!? well, i dont really like the system in Gmail! i feel confused and its not comfortable to use like, yahoo or hotmail. :)
Oh no, I just recently switched to gmail too, primarily because of the huge storage but also because my hotmails have been getting bombed with spam. Thanks for the info in any case.
I didn't know all these!
thanx a lot.
though I'm sticking 2 my g(evil)mail 4 the time being anyway...
what else can i do?
f
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I can see that I am not making many converts!
"one of those things that changed my life so completely" ---
First Google
Second Wiki
Third Orkut
Google is great and Gmail is a marvel!
And, btw, 'Independent' is mostly spelt with an 'e' :-P
Tasneem
http://www.iwrnews.org/tasneem
Anytime people talk about customer data I feel a twinge of guilt since understanding (gathering) customer data is what I just got my master's degree in. I guess I'll have to come to terms with it somehow. :)
Although, you do get rid of banners with graphics that take forever to load in some of the other email services. Now, what stops other email services from having bots go through our emails in the name of spam and virus filtering? I agree that this is less creepy than a bot that actively putting targetted ads from keywords and Gmail's is a declared feature that takes it one level further.
Given a choice between Google and all those other email services you mentioned, I would trust the Big G anyday. Google is a big publicly traded company, and have a reputation to protect. They are transparent in the sense they do what they say, and they say what they do. You don't know what those other smaller email services are going to do with your data, or even with themselves. It is very likely, and it has happened a lot in the past, that they will turn into paid services(usa.net) or simply disappear.
Your privace fears are ill founded .... Google will never sell your personal information for money. The stakes are just too high, and they have a better way of earning money. And the Governments all over the world tap all electronic communications as it is, so it is not that no one is reading your mail at all.
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