Hello Robert my apologies too, I was somewhere in a bad mood at the moment I wrote that response, it was like adding oil on the flames, you couldn't know that either.
On 2/13/07, Robert Michel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Salve Marcel,*! This is a personal answer from me - I'm very sorry to started this thread going into deep and I do not want to harm Openmoko by dissmotivating people to join... So, my style was not ok and I already asked for excuse me.
Apology accepted.
On Tue, 13 Feb 2007, Marcel de Jong wrote: > Sorry for not replying at the bottom... > > Why the open hostility towards GMail users? > > You all tout "we want freedom to choose" and all that, but still you'd > like to stifle the same level of freedom of others. > > I choose to use GMail, that's a deliberate choice, because it's one of > the few great _webmail_ applications, with which I can access my mail > anywhere I want. (I'm not always at home reading my mail) > > I've tried Yahoo mail, didn't like it, I even tried Fastmail in the > past. (which was slow) > > Gmail is responsive for me, and has a lot of good features that I like > and that I use. > And so far I have yet to see any proof of Google actively scr*wing > over their customers, by violating their privacy. Yes they add ads on > the side of the page by scanning your email, Yes, google is scanning *my* email and selling adds fitting to the mail - maybe also selling informations about me to others...
I know that there were privacy advocates in the beginning that were saying that, but I don't think that Google goes so far to do that, they'd waste a lot of goodwill that they have.
You as gmail user has agreed that google is allowed to - scan *my* email - to save *my* email as long as google likes.
Your ISP scans your email too, at least if you are not running your own mailserver. Who knows what happens there.
I do not have a problem with this, as long it is only about emails going to a public mailinglist - but when I want to send a personal mail to that person the problems starts. > like they also do with > the ad-sense ads, there is no difference there, no human eyes are > involved in that process. I have seen no proof of datamining, http://www.epic.org/privacy/gmail/faq.html
What is their standpoint on adsense on webpages where you can contribute, such as wikis and for instance comments on weblogs. Then your content is subject to the same things that your emails are on gmail's servers. I don't see the difference there, agreed with regards to really personal emails, yes, you do not post them somewhere on a webserver, but still no other human eyes will see those, aside from you and the recipient. Just a machine that determines which ad could be placed along side it. (Google is a business like any other, they too want to earn money) :)
Comparing with the spirit of the BBS times (with modems) a lot of interest of self-determined communication has been lost, people using skype and gmail because it is free - not caring what the price is that the have to pay or the people they are communicate with. I can't understand why people so close-fisted not spending some US$/Euros a year for a mailservice without advertisement and data mining. When more users would do this, better services would be on the market.
But those systems aren't there, there isn't a nice easy to use webmail client, with a subscription-fee, that doesn't scan your email. (Hushmail scans your email on spam too, don't they?)
And just agreed to Richards point: >> Why so many people who believe in the ideals put forward by the >> Neo/Openmoko project are happy to use Gmail astounds me.. > If you can't deal with gmail-messages, fine, block all gmail.com My sound was wrong - I just want make you think that you are give away you and others privatcy for a free webmailservice.
I don't think that your privacy is in any more danger than the internet already poses. And if it were, Google's webmail is I think the least of your worries (since its data isn't openly available). Anyone can find literally gigabytes of information on you, just by searching the web, and using commercial databases. (Go and look up "Privacy is dead, get over it." This was a speech recently held by a private investigator for a 2600.org meeting in New York on the very subject of privacy and how the net threatens it.)
And when the webmailer is also reason for trouble.... I hope my comments against gmail does only cost *me* sympathy points and *not* *OpenMoko* and I also hope that even when my sound was wrong, it creates reflection about decentral self controlled services instead of big-players data-mining solutions.
I don't have the time to set up my own webserver, and even if I did, I don't have the machines to do so. So that is clearly not a solution for me, and any other solution would be impossible, if we look at your suggestion. Every other solution is namely a centralized service by a company that could be a data-miner. Sure, I love having privacy, and you'll see me fighting for it in many occasions, but if you think that by banning gmail is going to solve anything, you've got to think again. What's the solution according to that linked site? Don't sign up for gmail? Okay, I guess people could follow that. But don't send mails to gmail.com users, isn't that a bit short-sighted? What's next? No mails to aol.com (I believe people already tried that before), and how about yahoo? And hotmail? Or how about my own ISP? (which is @home Netherlands) I'm sure they scan emails too. Clearly, that isn't a solution either.
OpenMoko has a big chance for *more* privatcy but - because it is for free - because everybody else is using it - becaus yzx is the biggest on the market is narrow minded and will not be a good adviser to reach more privacy.
How about, 'is a great tool to manage my email with'? :-) Just my 2 cents. I hope we can continue getting further OpenMoko. Perhaps by offering a mailserver appliance on the device? Solving this problem too. ;-) --- Marcel @ Hank, please don't be spiteful. We get nowhere by name-calling. _______________________________________________ OpenMoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org https://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community
