In a letter released yesterday twenty eight privacy experts and civil liberty organizations urged Google to suspend Gmail. This is quickly becoming a significant test of not only Google’s ability to communicate its intent to the world, but of what it means to live in a web centric world where your data is out there, with all the consequences, good and bad. One company cannot solve this problem.
PS – Gmail also has some trademark issues…
With all due respect to privacy experts, while privacy management concerns regarding Gmail are legitimate, this is an inevitable direction that content must take if it is to become more responsive to the interests of its audences. My sense of it is that there is a middle ground between perfectly private email and correspondence that one is willing to expose in limited ways in exchange for contributing to a group knowledgebase that takes links and interests into account when tracking down relevant content. Related thoughts on our own site:
http://shore.com/commentary/weblogs/2004_04_01_m_archive.html#108127099403347540
To the being a free service every person is free to use it. If a user does not want that they invade his privacy, not use this service.