Google's Mail Now Open

[gungrave]

Originally posted by haxor41789+12 April 2004 - 05:19--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (haxor41789 @ 12 April 2004 - 05:19)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Google
1000 megabytes

Ahem. [/b][/quote]

dunno what that other guy was thinking

[muchspl2]

By Declan McCullagh
CNET News.com
April 22, 2004, 3:54 PM PT
Blasting Gmail as a horrific intrusion into Internet users&#39; privacy, a California state senator has introduced legislation to block Google&#39;s free e-mail service.

State Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from the Bay Area city of Fremont, said Thursday that it should be illegal for a company to scan the text of its customers&#39; e-mail correspondence and display relevant advertising--even if customers explicitly agree to the practice in exchange for a gigabyte of storage.

"Telling people that their most intimate and private e-mail thoughts to doctors, friends, lovers and family members are just another direct-marketing commodity isn&#39;t the way to promote e-commerce," Figueroa said in a statement, which called Gmail customers&#39; correspondence "a direct-marketing opportunity for Google."

Google has encountered unexpectedly severe criticism from advocates of more government regulation to control private companies&#39; business practices. London-based Privacy International has fired off complaints to government officials in at least 16 nations. Meanwhile, a coalition of proregulatory privacy groups wrote a letter to Google, saying it "must" abandon plans to introduce Gmail in its current form. Less regulatory groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, did not sign that letter.

Figueroa&#39;s bill says an e-mail or instant-messaging provider can scan outgoing messages from its users, but not incoming ones. It includes a narrow exception for spam and virus filtering.

A Google representative said the company is reviewing the legislation and did not have an immediate response.

Figueroa&#39;s proposal would do far more than merely block the forthcoming Gmail service, which is not yet available to the public.

Her broadly written bill says no e-mail or IM provider may "review, examine or otherwise evaluate the content of incoming e-mail or instant message" originating from outside the system without the explicit permission of all outside correspondents, a difficult requirement to meet in practice.

That would make it illegal for a California technology company to offer a "family friendly" e-mail service that discards messages with sexually explicit jokes, for instance. It would also prohibit reviewing incoming messages to make clickable hyperlinks out of text phrases like "www.news.com."

"It&#39;s OK to read people&#39;s e-mail, if you&#39;re trying to fight spam, but it&#39;s not OK if you want to show them ads," said Sonia Arrison, director of technology policy at the free-market Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. "It&#39;s not about privacy. It&#39;s about hating corporate America."

Figueroa&#39;s office acknowledged that there were problems with the bill but predicted that they could be resolved during negotiations in the legislature. A hearing is scheduled before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 4.

[masterpiece21]

hows the spam controls? if its anything like aol,im soo sendin tyhem hate mail

[h1]

And what good will sending Google hate mail do?