This past week, I watched a podcast and read a blog post that reminded me just how cool GMail can be. Take ten minutes to go through both of these. You might be surprised at what Google’s free email service can do for you.
This podcast explores GMail Labs, a collection of tools that you can add to GMail.
Once you view this video, check out Five great Gmail timesavers.
Indeed people might be surprised at what GMail can do for them including reading and retaining your email and reporting its topics on request to the U.S. Government. And serving up targeted ads to you based on those topics. Ugh.
Google might not be the only provider guilty of this but certainly is a high-profile one. Do you have any suggestions of alternative cool email programs that DON’T invade user privacy?
Hi Janet,
Can’t say other email providers are any better. They can all mine the information on their servers. And given the fact that they provide their services for free, can you blame them?
As for the US Government, the Patriot Act permits huge amounts of leeway in acquiring information, particularly if servers are located in the US – which most free email service servers are. This fact scares quite a few people. Check out this article for a better overall understanding.
All this said, the chances of any PERSON actually reading your messages in a veritable ocean of email are slim to none. Really. Unless you’re on some Homeland Security watch list, I wouldn’t sweat it.