On Friday 2 April 2004, jmcc at hackwatch.com (John McCormac) wrote:
> From experience, the bulk of the internet is a largely static set of
>data with the majority of pages changing on a yearly basis. With e-mail,
>there is a continual update though having local access makes the whole
>process a lot easier for Google. The most interesting thing that may
>come out of this would be the fast uptake of PGP and similar mail
>encryption or steno packages.
This thought crossed my mind, for a second or two. Then I remembered that
we're talking about a webmail based service here. Sure, you can take to
sending mails with "Please read the attached encrypted file" just like the
most up to date worm authors, but what would be the point. For any sensible
use of web mail, the text has to be decrypted to be sent to your browser. Thus
of us who speak minority langauges may be reasonably safe from targeted ads,
but of course we'll still get ads. And anyway, we'll get targeted ads when we
read mail from our friends who don't speak the minority language.
> Though Google may just have something in the T&C about using encrypted>
> e-mail.
I'd be astonished if they had to be honest.
Niall
Maintained by the ILUG website team. The aim of Linux.ie is to
support and help commercial and private users of Linux in Ireland. You can
display ILUG news in your own webpages, read backend
information to find out how. Networking services kindly provided by HEAnet, server kindly donated by
Dell. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds,
used with permission. No penguins were harmed in the production or maintenance
of this highly praised website. Looking for the
Indian Linux Users' Group? Try here. If you've read all this and aren't a lawyer: you should be!
