AP: REVIEW: Google's E-Mail Service Flexible

An Associated Press reporter reviewed Google's Gmail email service and found all the hoo-hah to be a bit overblown. While privacy advocates have vilified the idea of a large-storage free email application, especially one that "reads" emails to target ads, many other layers in the email process already look at the content of messages, for instance spam and virus filters, not to mention bored corporate IT drones. He tested out the privacy and advertising policies, sending phony messages to see if the system really did what Google intended it to do (and it seemed to).

Likes: storage size - obviously - and some of the organization features, many of which are novel. Dislikes: the program breaks using Apple's Safari browser, doesn't work with third party email programs and for all Google's reputation for cleverness, the spam filter doesn't seem to be any better than that of Yahoo.