Google Gets the Message, Launches Gmail

There is a test HERE

I share your concern re the potential for exploits. I haven't used it yet ... but I'm sure eventually I will. I doubt, at this time, anyway, that it would ever become my primary email client.

It won't become mine, I'll use it as a semi-spam inbox.

This is great for webmail but webmail is already something up with which I'll NEVER put.

I've been using it for a while now through an employee account. It'll wow the average webmail user but the inability to use pop access kills it for me.

The big question is whether they can actually handle the resource use and whether it will stay free at that storage level.

I suspect POP access will be fee based because they don't display ads there (unless they start inserting adwords text into the actual email).

Anywho, IMO, the best email is one in which you own the domain. That way their decisions will never affect you.

If Google is really interested in preventing the exploit you mention, 'twould be easy to make it at least uncommon enough that I wouldn't be much worried about it.

All they'd have to do is:

- Not provide ads based on the name or email address of the sender/recipient.
- Not display unapproved ads in emails.

Since Google already eventually looks over all keywords being targeted by their advertisers, that shouldn't be any big deal to actually implement. Of course, one reason for the large amount of advertisers Google has on board is 'cus of how ads go live instantly, but I think advertisers will be happy enough if their instant gratification is limited to web search results, etc. Of course, Google might not be interested in cutting a bit of their ad revenue in that way.

I can think of a few other ways to curb that exploit. But none that can totally vanquish it.

For example, you can just make the exploit once removed, and make the ad innocuous and push the exploit elsewhere.

Take stealing passwords for example. It does not require ad copy that is obviously intended to do anything except get a visitor (like all other ads).

The landing page could seem obstensibly innocent as well.

And the page could be spoofing the targeted site to caputure attempted logins.

Let's use A2K as an example. All the email notifications have some standard text. Targeting the text can be done in a seemingly innocuous way.

Then the landing page for the ad can spoof an A2K login and capture the passwords.

Now it could be reduced to a rarity but this is just one of the downsides I see with it.

Aha...I get where you're coming from. Well that threat is certainly harder to deal with than people just posting messages targetted at individual users. I imagine there will be a fair few people & websites who'll avoid sending anything to gmail accounts, as you've said you would.

That email directing to a spoofed login page thing is getting bigger and bigger. I get a few a day, for PayPal, various banks/credit cards ... most of which I don't have, and that sort of thing. Sometimes the copy writing is a hoot. Usually the scam involves "We need to verify your identity" or "Please renew your login information". I even got one once for a gasoline card. The spoofed site was hillarious - looked like it had been hand drawn then scanned.

I think that if if unapproved ads were not shown, bank/paypal/etc.-type spoofed pages & tageted ads would very rarely make it through google's system, without the need for other preventative measures.

my company's firewall prevents me from getting to the gmail homepage

wanna know when the beta is over so we can sign up

2 FYIs:

1) a company has been using Gmail named amil for a few years and when Google leaked the news they were worried about a trademark issue. They checked and it wasn't registered so they registered the trademark Gmail (though not the domain).

I suspect Google will just settle this.

2) 28 privacy watchdogs have joined to make a petition to Google to suspend Gmail:

http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/GmailLetter.htm

About whether Google will tie the registration that comes with email to your websearches and other fields where they operate:

Geesh
It's hard to be successful when you are riding the wave, everyone wants to knock you off.

Yep, but only this year did Google start garnering real portions of resentment. A lot of it's unfounded but they've been moving toward the type of reputation that Microsoft has because their power is becoming more and more apparent.

I hope they can avoid it and I think they will. I also hope Gmail is a success because I want them to take some knocks in the search wars. Email's not a concern for me.

Is anyone else getting good at searches yet?
I haven't found any other service that comes close yet - and I'd sure like to have more than one search option.

Yahoo,'s got it's sights on Google but their engine is only about a month old. Many think it's already close but I don't.

Alltheweb was always a pretty good rival but still not close enough.

Ask Jeves/Teoma is the next and they are horrid.

Your best best is to wait for Microsoft. Thus far it's vaporware but they talk like they are serious about entering the search wars.

I long for competition, over the last few years it's been becoming more and more a "and then there was one" situation.

Makes my job easier (optimizing page on only oen battlefront) but I like healkthy competition. The competition from Yahoo already made Google go out and spider more pages than they had been spidering. More horses in the race can only help.

So look for Yahoo to improve, and MSN to start within a year (and they can either be mediocre or blow Google out of the water).

Thanks, Craven. I'll keep on watching. Ask Jeeves never did anything useful for me, that didn't require me to stand on my head while typing. Bleccccch. The current Yahoo and MSN (we've got some version of that at work now) don't be able to get their synapses snapping yet.

Is it possible there just is no better way? I hope the answer isn't yes, but it's going to take one heck of a spectacular programming leap of understanding to come up something more intuitive.

It's really not that difficult at all. It's just that people are finally waking up to the axioms of web search.

1) There's big bucks in it (Microsoft admits it was wrong to not jump in in earnest earlier).

2) You need to be good on all the queries, not just the most common.

Getting the right algo is tough, Google tweaks their algo a lot. But the rest is just resources. They need to go out and spider the pages.

Most search engines are happy with doing a half-assed job. They want to do well with the popular queries and do poorly on the deep searches.

Yahoo,s already doing ok, they just need to tweak their algo and build up their index.

The index size is just a matter of how much resources you put into it. Microsoft can buy plenty of servers. In this they can compete on money alone.

The algo is the key, and it's not really hard to do. There's just been no serious challengers for search supremacy. Everyone was happy just using Google till they realized that the future of their income depended on them beating Google.

So now the race is on. Google defeated other engines easily and quickly, the same can happen to them. All it takes is inovation. I'm banking on Microsoft with Yahoo also improving.

P.S. the current MSN search is drek, their new search will be a new generation of search that searches all (email, files, web, people...).

Well at least that's what it says on the vaporware box.

Beta test is still going on. The Gmail functions are,of course, very controversial. Also I didn't like this. I prefer Yahoo.

Nevertheless, what about virus scanner or any filter in other mail provider? As far as I know they scan the mail, too.

btw, apropos mail : It struck me not but now, why there is on a2k no a funktion avaible to show the email in the profile?

Presently I read that the beta testing phase will be stop on September.