In a press release titled April 1, Google has announced that it is providing a free email service to customers called Gmail which includes 1 gigabyte of free email storage space and a search facility. The content of the emails would be automatically scanned for keywords in order to deliver targeted, content-based advertising to users.
Google has claimed the move is not a joke – its competitors, including Microsoft and Yahoo!, will surely be hoping that it is. After all, Microsoft’s free Hotmail service only provides people with 2 MB of storage space. Gmail’s capacity allows for 500 times that amount. Inevitably, people will have privacy concerns if Google is to be scanning the content of emails for keywords. But if users click on the text ads, advertisers will not be able to uniquely identify them, Google said, and email contents will remain private. The whole thing is still in test mode, but Google hopes Gmail will be available to the mainstream soon.
Internet Magazine
Google Launches Free Email With 1GB
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