Type G for Google Mail

Google, the ruler of the Internet search world, has announced its decision to
extend its services to email. According to the company, it plans to offer a free
email service called Gmail with 1 gigabite of storage, which is nearly 100 times
of the storage capacity offered by long entrenched email providers Yahoo and MSN
Hotmail. Gmail, which is on a trial run now, will reportedly be available for a
larger audience within weeks. One of the biggest attraction points of the
announced mail service could be that it will extend the popular keyword based
search technology of Google to enable users to find any emails that they have
ever received or sent without having to save them in separate folders.

On the other hand, the mail service could potentially create a debate on
privacy issues. The service intends to bring in revenues by way of advertising
which is linked to topics discussed in the emails, which means emails will be
scanned for content and relevant advertising displayed. It will also use cookies
to track email and web search patterns, which put together, can become a
potentially detailed record of behavior among individual consumers. While Google’s
privacy policy says that no human reads or directs any of this and that all of
it is automated, that could come as poor comfort for potential users, especially
since it also states that ‘residual copies of email may remain on our systems,
even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of
your account’. In fact, Reuters reports that a citizens group has already
complained about the privacy issues that these terms raises with UK authorities.
Whether the increasing talk on potential privacy hazards will influence Google
enough to change the terms of agreement or not is unclear at present.

Google’s entry into email, where Yahoo and Hotmail rule the roost, has been
predicted by many over the last year and, as the area of search technology
becomes a more competitive field with both Yahoo and MSN aggressively pushing
their solutions in the field, it would seem but natural for Google to tap email
for extension of services. But whether or not Google, which is scheduled for an
IPO later this year, is able to make the success of email that it has of search,
might depend on whether it is able to convince users of the safety of the
information it will collect with its service.

Sathya Mithra Ashok in Bangalore