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
