On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 02:22:58 -0600, Katra > wrote:

>In article >,
> Yeff > wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 02:02:36 -0600, Katra wrote:
>>
>> > I just don't like the idea of Google archiving all of my PRIVATE
>> > e-mails!!! I'ts none of their friggin business and no-one can tell me
>> > it's truly secure!
>>
>> Unless you're encrypting all of your emails before you send them, your
>> emails aren't private at all. You're simply trusting that someone isn't
>> reading them along the multiple points from your computer to your
>> recipient.
>>
>> I'll also bet that your email program sends your password in the clear to
>> your ISP when you check your mail...
>>
>> Privacy on the Internet? You can't assume it's there - you kinda have to
>> work at it.
>
>Well, I accept that as part of the whole internet thing... :-)
>If you are doing something illegal or immoral, you will probably
>eventually get tagged.
>
>It's the "archiving" thing I have a problem with!

There's nothing stopping you from deleting email from your Gmail account that
you don't want "archived"

That said, I do think that Gmail is overhyped. But I can also say that as a
heavy e-mail user for over 10 years, I am completely sold on Gmail, and am now
using it exclusively for all my personal mail. I subscribe to many mailing
lists, and Gmail is utterly fantastic for managing them and instantly searching
through hundreds of megabytes of information.

And being that I am rarely home, and travel between many different physical
locations every day, Gmail is much more convinient than installing an IMAP (or
heavens forbid, POP3) aware mail client at each location to check and send
email. I suppose if you only do your email tasks at home, though, a service like
Gmail won't hold much appeal.

Gmail's interface is lightning fast (magnitudes superior to any other mainstream
webmail service--it even has keyboard shortcuts, which is a fantastic feature)
and unencumbered by banner ads and other useless "features" (I used to be a big
fan of Yahoo! mail, but the service has become needlessly bloated over the past
few years)

As far as privacy is concerned, your paranoia is understandable, but overblown.
Read this critique by Tim O'Reilly (founder of the geek-friendly, Open Source
publishing juggernaut, O'Reilly and Associates) and you might gain some new
perspectives on the service:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4707

Aloha,
mel