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Redirect new Mail.app mail to gmail (or any service)
Most of the privacy concerns are moot, I think. Relatively speaking, they're not doing anything different from MSN, Yahoo, or any other free email provider when it comes to your email content. How do you think spam blockers work? By NOT scanning your email somehow? The entire difference lies in two things: 1) AdWords 2) Google being open and honest about their practices and intentions. People don't like the contents of their emails being used for marketing purposes. I can respect that, but on the other hand I think it leads to a general improvement of the web. For example, I've been looking into switching web hosts recently, and was talking about it with a friend via email. Right next to my friend's email, which listed a couple of hosts he had heard good things about, was an AdWords provided list of web hosts. To me, that's an excellent thing - direct, unobtrusive, and relevant advertising. The web doesn't work for free any more folks, and more relevant advertising leads to more clicks, which leads to more buys, which leads to more money for the site that originally had the banner. More money for the site means better features and service. To me, that's win-win. So this brings up the question of HOW they scan your email. Quite frankly, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it up until the point that they start databasing and cataloging what I talk about. The nice part is, they don't do that. Now you might read somewhere that Google's policies are subject to change. Ignoring the fact that EVERY free service on the internet has policies subject to change, Google can't even change the one everyone is worried about. Google is in California, and California passed a bill specifically targeted at GMail that will "explicitly allow e-mail and instant-messaging providers to scan the content of messages to deliver advertisements, as long as the providers meet certain restrictions on how the data is used. Information gleaned from e-mails cannot be retained, shared with a third party, or shown to any employee or other "natural person." In addition, messaging providers must permanently delete messages at the request of customers." (source) So I ask, in what way is this any worse, in any way whatsoever, than any other free email service?
Is Gmail "Creepier" Than Any Other Service?
I don't disagree that Gmail is any worse than any other free email service. I was going to say that in my original response, but forgot. Personally, I don't use them either.
Is Gmail "Creepier" Than Any Other Service?
Well, what you're saying makes perfect sense - if you want your stuff to stay private, you don't rely on someone else to store it and transfer it, regardless of how secure they might say they are. That applies to everything, be it email or your grandmother's broach in a deposit box at the bank. Whenever you depend on someone else to take care of something, you have to trust them.
Is Gmail "Creepier" Than Any Other Service?
This seems to be a common misconception that people have. Gmail does *not* put ads in the email that Gmail users send out. When a Gmail user opens an email, there is an AdWords box off to the right of the email showing 'related' ads. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Is Gmail "Creepier" Than Any Other Service?
I think it's a reasonable mistake for users to make. All of the ads (or little extras, whatever you want to call them) that you see when using other email services are appended directly onto the end of the email, and sometimes prepended at the beginning. If gmail's mechanism is different, only displaying ads to the user reading the email through gmail's web interface, then good for them. That's a step in the right direction, imo. I wonder if they'll offer email forwarding to external accounts? If so, what do they do about the ads in those case?
Is Gmail "Creepier" Than Any Other Service?
Gmail Creapy? Its run buy the guy who runs google watch... and he hates google because he didn't like his page ranking... checking out Google-Watch-Watch.com. I don't trust Gmail is Creapy nor Google Watch, I have more faith in Google than I have in Daniel Brandt.
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