Personally, I don't want anyone searching my incoming e-mail so I have already set up my spam filters to bounce any and all e-mail from "@gmail.com" and "@google.com" (will update if necessary when they go live).

Couldn't agree with you more Hal. What I really want to emphasize here is we are talking about 'private' email. People are being suckered by the 1 gig storage deal, but some don't understand it is NOT webspace they are offering. It is ONLY storage for emails.

Google has an ulterior motive for providing such. That way everything will be there for posterity's sake - ie. for the search engine robots to access and process the information. They are certainly not giving it away for benevolent reasons. AND, even if you try to delete your mail it will still remain there for indexing.

Personally I don't understand all the hype. If I should happen to use Hotmail for example (I don't but my kids do) I would download what I want and delete the rest for security purposes. And if I want to store my email then all I have to do is invest a few cents in a CD and put it on MY shelf - NOT Google's.

If you want to get fancy with searches, use software like SleuthHound, dtSearch, enFish, xFind or whatever to index it. So having a gig storage space on the internet is irrelevant to me.

So what's the big deal? If people want to leave their private email on the internet for Google to use at its discretion then more power to them. But don't come crying when you find your private information on a search engine some day.

Google has an ulterior motive for providing such.

The most insidious thing is, I think, the fact that even if I don't sign up, all my incoming e-mail from Gmail users will get scanned by Google (hence my filters to block all Gmail).

I have come to the realization that I have no privacy online. Therefore what google may or may not be doing (we really do not know yet) does not alarm me, nor do I think it would pose a threat.

Or at least your conversations (incoming or outgoing) with somebody having a Google address.

Thanks, I never thought of that.

Ken, I agree at times like it seems to be a losing battle.

Hence, all the more reason to use an online alias.

Good point about using an alias. But yes, loosing battles gets tiring after a while.

...makes note to self to stop using real name on BC :P

Me too. I never liked my name anyway :)

I hate to break it to you but computers already scan your email if you're using a yahoo or hotmail account.

I don't see what the concern is. No person will read your email (it is more likely that someone will forward your email without your knowledge or even post it online).

Personally, I think it is worth it to have a gig of storage plus the other features of gmail. You don't have to get an account.

As far as blocking gmail mail, you could just email anyone using it and ask them to use another account. And you'd have no idea if I were forwarding all my email to a gmail account.

Would be cool if it was encrypted (some sort of PGP-like) end to end like a Skype conversation. This would get rid of the privacy concerns, but would also eliminate Google's ability to scan the messages.

I guess this wouldn't prevent users from encrypting the text of their messages before sending anyway and simply using gmail as a conduit.

What should be illegal is their privacy policy. One may think that they are protected until you read the fine print. Their privacy policy states that they can change their privacy policy at any time....without notice to you and without your approval. So one terrible scenario is that after you've used the product for a while, saved up thousands of messages which google has indexed and made a "ad profile" of you, they can then change their privacy policy and give whomever they want the information.

It is their reservation to change the privacy at any time that should be illegal. No company should be able to do that.

do we have an alternate domain name for http://www.gmail.com?

i can access the internet content through http://www.voxov.com as http://www.google.com is blocked but there is no such site that provides access to the mailbox at gmail