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Hi,
Well I aint bashed Yahoo yet.... I use it daily .
Hotmail got my goat cause I left it more than a month once and didn't check email... pardon me for being ill!!!! then they wanted some bucks to re-activate!!!!
Dont get me wrong POPPY4, I like google. And yes our email is probably scanned by national security services, secret police etc. but as far as I know they dont add to the email any adverts for products based on what words are included in the text of the mail.
Phil
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Gmail seems innocuous enough, but there are two things to consider:
First, Google has amassed a huge database of information concerning searches, queries etc. through the use of non-expiring cookies. That has people concerned enough, but now the email service can (and likely will) allow them to now link that "anonymous" data with an actual personal identity. There are users out there that never flush their cookies, and may not realize that google has been tracking their search requests for years.
Second, your emails may be retained indefinitely, even after you delete them. Why? May not seem like a big deal, but down the road do you like the idea of an organization having a catalogue of people you communicate with, discussions you've had, services subscribed to etc.?
I also have a third, but it's more speculative (and maybe a bit paranoid) on my part. ISP's are more or less absolved of responsibility for monitoring the traffic flowing through their networks, providing them a shield of legal indemnity. The catch is that if ISP's start monitoring their networks for some particular type of questionable or illegal content, then they're expected to monitor for everything and are held responsible for the traffic travelling on their networks. This type of protection prevents an organization like the RIAA from going after ISP's for allowing copyrighted material to be transferred among their subscribers.
If a soon-to-be-public organization like google has the technology in place to scan everyone's email for keywords with the right to do so granted by the users via the user agreement, it makes me wonder about the ability of agencies (government or private a la RIAA) to force Google through legal means to scan for questionable content. I'm not sure they'd be protected by the same don't ask-don't tell immunity ISP's have. I'm not a privacy expert or a lawyer, and I am a law abiding citizen (for the most part ) but it still gives me cause for concern.
Anyways, I'm not slagging google, I use their services countless times in a day (although I flush my cookies regularly). I just think that in this day and age of digital technology and privacy issues, people need to be aware that something isn't necessarily what it seems to be.
(stepping of soap box now...)
Just my $0.02...
KV
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