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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Gmail |
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| BrKhalid |
| 04/01/04 at 08:29:31 |
| Asalaamu Alaikum ;-) Does anyone really need 1GB worth of storge?!? Actually, on second thoughts I don't really want an answer to that! ;-) [hr] Google plans rival e-mail service Google, the world's most popular internet search engine, plans to offer an e-mail service called Gmail in a bid to rival Yahoo and Microsoft's Hotmail. The new service promises to take away the need to delete unwanted messages and organise e-mail according to topic. The service is still being tested and not yet generally available, but will be offered for free on www.gmail.com. Google mail provides one gigabyte of storage - many times more than existing rivals that also offer free e-mail. Each user would have storage equivalent to 500,000 pages of e-mail, said Google. Idea followed complaints The idea came to one of Google's founders, Larry Page, after listening to complaints from a Google user. She said she was spending all her time filing messages or trying to find them and "deleting like crazy" just to keep within the storage limits. She asked, "Can't you people fix this?" GMail is a new approach to email which takes advantage of a search facility and would group messages displaying them as a conversation. Google has a commanding lead in the global internet search engine market, although its market share has shrunk sharply during the past month after Yahoo stopped using Google technology to power its searches. Yahoo is now using its own search engines, which it developed after buying search companies Inktomi, Overture and Altavista. Another claim is that GMail includes a spam filter and sends information to the GMail team working on spam blocking. Rivals comparison Hotmail and Yahoo also offer spam filters but many users say that they continue to get bombarded with unwanted e-mails advertising dubious products. Viruses carried by e-mail attachments are also a threat to computer systems. Google is privately-owned, but expected to float on the stock market later this year, a deal that could value Google at up to $25bn (£14.7bn) - slightly more than listed online retailer Amazon. The California-based company says it has expanded its web index to include more than six billion items. Four billion of these are web pages, while Google has also put more effort into the size of its picture database. Google is by far the world's most popular internet search engine. It has had a meteoric rise since the company was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. RIVALS COMPARED Gmail Free 1,000 megabytes (MB) storage No sorting or deleting needed No pop-ups and banners Spam filter and virus scan MSN Hotmail Free 2 MB storage Up to 100MB costs $59.95 a year Spam filter and virus scan Yahoo Free 4 MB storage Up to 100MB costs $49.79 a year Spam filter and virus scan [url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3588933.stm[/url] |
| Re: Gmail |
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| theOriginal |
| 04/01/04 at 11:13:59 |
| [slm] I dig it. And hellz yeah I need the whole GB! Okay Brother Khalid, since you brought it up, it is your responsibility to let us know AS SOON AS it comes out. I want first dibs on sarah@gmail.com :) lol. Wasalaam. |
| Re: Gmail |
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| bhaloo |
| 04/01/04 at 14:09:00 |
| [slm] My main account is about 850 megabytes of email on my computer. I think i would fill up 1 gigabyte. |
| Re: Gmail |
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| Mossy |
| 04/01/04 at 14:20:44 |
| My sunnipath one will do me fine ;) [url=http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html]Google rocks[/url]. I've applied for a slightly different internship with them, but was tempted to apply to that job :) [url=http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/gmail.html]My money's on it being an April fool[/url]. Then again, they do have [url=http://www.google.com/technology/pigeonrank.html]Pigeon Rank[/url]... |
| 04/01/04 at 14:23:13 |
| Mossy |
| Re: Gmail |
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| jannah |
| 04/01/04 at 15:21:54 |
| wlm, google definitely has a good sense of humor :) hey they are hiring in india if anyones there!! |
| 04/01/04 at 15:54:49 |
| jannah |
| Re: Gmail |
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| momineqbal |
| 04/03/04 at 03:21:28 |
| [slm], Google is going to scan your emails for serving up relevant ads to you when you are browsing through email. A definite gotcha there as far as privacy is concerned. |
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| jannah |
| 04/07/04 at 07:39:42 |
| yikes kind of scary: http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-bz.google07apr07,0,2922752.story?coll=bal-technology-headlines Free Google e-mail service alleged to invade privacy Software views messages, inserts advertisements By Chris Gaither Los Angeles Times April 7, 2004 Privacy advocates are concerned that there's one big flaw with Google Inc.'s free e-mail service: The company plans to read the messages. The Internet search company says it needs to know what's in the e-mail that passes through its system so they can be sprinkled with advertisements that Google thinks are relevant. Revenue from those targeted ads will pay for the Gmail service, which began a test last week, offering up to 500 times as much e-mail storage as competing Web e-mail programs from Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The electronic letters will be read by computers, not by Google employees, but the specter of seeing an ad for an antacid beside a message from a friend complaining about stomach pain is enough to make some people nervous about the e-mail service. "There will undoubtedly be some folks that will see this and freak out," said Ray Everett-Church, chief privacy officer for TurnTide Inc., an anti-spam company in Conshohocken, Pa. The aggressive advertising strategy might put a damper on Google's biggest move away from its core business of Internet searches. After reading the privacy policy on the Gmail Web site last week, consumer-rights groups began sending complaints to the privately held Mountain View, Calif., company and began preparing to warn users to stay away. "The privacy implications of going through and perusing a customer's e-mail to display targeted advertising could be the Achilles' heel for Google's services," said Jordana Beebe, communications director for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer group in San Diego. The consternation caught Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products, off guard. "I'm very surprised that there are these kinds of questions," he said. Spam-filtering programs routinely scour e-mail for telltale words such as "Viagra," and companies monitor the messages of employees on their corporate networks. In addition, Internet companies scrutinize Web search terms to serve up ads that are related to the topic a user apparently cares about. Google's AdSense program goes a step further, placing such ads alongside content on Web sites that come up in search results. But e-mail is a more personal form of communication, making targeted advertisements feel intrusive, said Chris Hoofnagle, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. He likened the Gmail ads to a computerized voice interrupting a phone conversation about a vacation with a pitch for a travel agency. "This is an expansion in a way that should bother people," Hoofnagle said. "Communications are sacred." Consumer advocates are also worried about the potential for Google to link Gmail users to their Internet searches. Google records the numerical Internet addresses of the computers that request each of the Web searches the company performs. But it hasn't had names or other identifying information to link those addresses to specific people and learn who, for example, is searching for "Janet Jackson halftime show." Once users register for Gmail, Google could make that connection, said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum in San Diego. And if Google ever compared the two sets of data, she said, "there are some people who would be chilled and embarrassed." Page wouldn't say whether Google plans to link Gmail users to their Web search queries. The Los Angeles Times is a Tribune Publishing newspaper. |
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| Mona |
| 04/07/04 at 08:54:39 |
| [slm] I knew it! It just sounded too good to be true. I just did not post lest people would think that I am cynical. take care wassalam |
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| timbuktu |
| 04/07/04 at 09:17:04 |
| [slm] if you use google search, you already place yourself in their spied-upon list. I learnt this through many months ago. |
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| Mossy |
| 04/07/04 at 12:13:13 |
| www.spymac.com :-[ |
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