The Fuss About Gmail and Privacy: Read why it's Bogus

[Colin Dunstan]

There has been a rash of recent editorials about privacy concerns with Google's gmail service. A number of organizations have asked Google to voluntarily suspend the service. One California legislator has gone so far as to say she plans to introduce a bill to ban it. This is nuts!

...says Tim O'Reilly from the famous O'Reilly Media publisher. Well, I did read his nine arguments, actually twice (!), but I cannot agree with him.

"Gmail is fascinating to me as a watershed event in the evolution of the internet. In a brilliant Copernican stroke, gmail turns everything on its head, rejecting the personal computer as the center of the computing universe, instead recognizing that applications revolve around the network as the planets revolve around the Sun."

To me it sounds as if Tim was among those celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Henry Kissinger, Shaq O'Neal who put money into Google in 1999 through Angel Investors. Now he might be waiting for the big bucks in return.

Would you want your mail being scanned by a bot for commercial purposes?