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Thank you for contacting us. Unfortunately, due to potential privacy and confidentiallity considerations, we are not accepting inbound email from Google's Gmail service. In order for us to respond to your email, you will need to resend it from a different email account.
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I am aware of the current privacy backlash (silly in my opinion), but in my opinion, regardless of the email providers Terms and Conditions, the biggest threat to the privacy of the person's reply is the person they send it to - not the provider.
Someone so paranoid about privacy should really require recipients of their emails to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Privacy is so 20th century.
Who besides spammers and the warez crowd would use Gmail?
who in their right mind would want advertisements in their email whether it be personal or business correspondence?
I certainly wouldn't want to send "aunt Martha" birthday wishes just to have it plastered with advertisements?
Who would allow/want this? Then why would you allow Google to deface your correspondence?
If a client is too cheap to get/use their ISP email address if they do not have a website – sorry, I don't want their business as it tells me a lot about them.
I certainly wouldn't type a personal message to my wife at work for instance and have it filled with "dating" or other types of advertisements.
...what a company will stoop to in order to try to make a buck.
It is a personal decision to use Gmail or not – just don't be surprised when you don't get a reply.
I think it will also cost Google dearly in advertising revenue in the future if they go ahead with this and don't make it a completely separate option for AdWords advertisers.
I've only had my gmail account for a couple of weeks, but I love it. No tags on my outgoing messages ("Do you Yahoo?"), fast browsing, seemingly great spam control and I love the "labels instead of folders" idea.
I am by no means rich, but if you want any of my money in the future, you'll probably need to accept my gmail.
Mickey
I think it will cost Google dearly in advertising revenue if they don't make it a completely separate option for AdWords advertisers.
They don't let advertisers bid separately for contextual ads at the moment (& gmail falls into the contextual ads category), so I think it's unlikely until they separate out contextual ads first.
At the moment gmail users are the tech savvy & it would be foolish to turn down potential business by indiscriminate blocking.
However, Google *do* need to make sure that it doesn't go the way of Yahoo & Hotmail (all blocked by my server) where you can create an unlimited number of disposable accounts which are easily abused by spammers. If it does, all gmail addresses may have to be added to my blocklist too.
Does anyone have a spare Gmail invite? I'm dying for an account - please sticky me!
Does anyone have a spare Gmail invite? I'm dying for an account - please sticky me!
And while I think it'd be ideal for Google to somehow limit folks to one account, I don't see how this is practically possible. Along the same lines, I find it odd that you block Yahoo and Hotmail, but don't block any of the other hundreds of free-unlimited-Webmail accounts.
And I don't know about you, but about 99% of the spam I get "from" Yahoo and Hotmail accounts is actually spoofed (check the headers!). Both Yahoo and Hotmail (along with, I'd guess, all other Webmail providers) have STRICT limits on the number of mails that can be sent out per hour and per day, making them not very conducive for bulk mail, solicited or not.
I find it odd that you block Yahoo and Hotmail, but don't block any of the other hundreds of free-unlimited-Webmail accounts
Many of the others are blocked too. :)
I know that the headers are spoofed & that the spam is not usually sent from yahoo/hotmail. However, blocking them does eliminate a *huge* amount of spam. It's also pretty unlikely that any legitimate B2B enquiry will come from a free email account, so no major concerns there (although gmail may be a different story).
The only way that Google can probably prevent suffering the same fate is to have some kind of sender verification system that proves the mail is from a legitimate gmail account, but I've no idea how they'd go about it.
The only way that Google can probably prevent suffering the same fate is to have some kind of sender verification system that proves the mail is from a legitimate gmail account, but I've no idea how they'd go about it.
What exactly does identity mean... in relation to Gmail... or anything online nowadays?
I have (hopefully) earned trust here as "ThatAdamGuy." But what does that mean? Is ThatAdamGuy the only name I post under? Am I an employee of a search engine company? Do I or will I own stock in Google? Am I Brett Tabke's brother or long-lost brother?*
I know this may be seeming to go a bit off on a tangent, but I think it really comes neatly back to Gmail and other Webmail services. What identity 'proof' do you want, how could you get it, and what would it mean? And why is verified-person@gmail.com any less or more believable than one-of-eight-names-per-account@earthlink.net? (yes, as an earthlink user, I can create and delete e-mail addresses willy-nilly, keeping up to 8 at a time!)
* Good question. Yes. No. Maybe. Not that I know of.
First off, a comment about Webmail: I keep seeing postings here saying that I should "just use a 'real' address like my ISP's email address." The huge problem that I've had with ISP email addresses is they are often in flux because of the nature of the business. For example, while living in the Chicago area, I had cable modem service, and my email address changed from a "username@continental.com" to "username@ATTBI.com" to "username@comcast.com" over the course of just a couple years, and I never even moved! I prefer an email address that'll be with me for a long time.
I also see comments that I "should use an email client like Outlook or Eudora." No thanks. Simply put, Webmail offers a freedom that PC clients simply can't provide. I've been with my "real" Web-based email provider since 1999, and it has been consistent and stable. As a very long-time email user, I find Webmail to be an amazing convenience that is almost essential. I am rarely near my home PC, so being able to access my personal email from anywhere there is Web access is very important to me. I could certainly pay for a decent Webmail account, and in fact, I do. Unfortunatly, it doesn't offer the features that I have grown to love about Gmail.
After Beta testing Gmail for almost a month, to me Gamil has really nailed it in both form and function. Gmail is more than a free account. It's much more than 1GB of storage. It's far more than receiving targeted ads. It's all about being able to organize, archive, and find information more easily and quickly than was ever possible. This is something that I have been waiting for, and I feel that Gmail has delivered, and delivered well. No other Webmail service that I have tried, beats Gmail (and I have tried literally scores of Webmail services.) Though PC clients offer more features, no PC client offers me the same accessibility and simplicity. If Gmail ever decides to eliminate the ad-supported service and charge for their service without ads, I would gladly pay for it in a heartbeat because of what it offers. Show me another Webmail service that offers similar features (Searching, Labels, Conversations, Large Storage space, and lightning-fast interface) that doesn't display ads, and I'll seriously consider it.
My second point concerns just who is, or should be in control of email messages. As a recipient of lots of email, I believe that I, the recipient, should be able to do whatever I want with an email that I receive, and I should be able to control how I "experience" that message. If I wanted to view an email through "Lynx" I should be able to. If I want to view email on a huge light array on the side of a building, I should be able to. If I want to write my own program that would scan every email I receive and present me links to other related and relevent sites, I should be able to. If I want a service like Gmail to do it for me, I should be able to. If I want to print an email, cross out specific words with a black marker and change them to something else, I should be able to. The only real difference here is that the sender knows upfront what Gmail is doing. In any case, the sender doesn't nor should necessarily know what I am doing with the email. It should be up to me, the recipient to determine how or with what I view my messages. If a business denies me service because I choose to use Gmail, then I will find another business that will provide similar services at similar costs.
My next point deals with how email addresses are handled, and specifically, "throwaway" addresses: When a business collects an email address from an existing or a potential customer, does the business have the right to send unsolicited emails without the recipient's concent? This problem is so huge because so many businesses have abused email for their own gain that as a recipient, I have to be very cautious when I give out my "real" email address. If I can be assured (and it's often very hard to get that assurance) that when I give a business my email address, I won't receive unwanted followup solicitations, then I'll give my "real" address. If not, then I'll use a "throwaway" address. Why? Because I simply don't want later, followup solicitations and spam. Some businesses may be very ethical in handling emails, and I commend them, but not all are. So now I, the recipient must take on the responsibility to to control what emails I receive and what I will do with them.
Simply put, I do not want to be inundated with Spam. Face facts: When a business gets a hold of a customer's email address, regardless of what the customer's intentions are, the business often uses the custoemr's email address for future solicitations. Again, there are ethical companies, but many are not. I, the receiver, should have the right to choose whether or to not receive future solicitations. It should NOT be up to the sender, because quite frankly, senders have shown consietent irresponsibility in handling email lists. Just because I give a business my email address for corresponding about a specific topic should not give that business license to continue to send me future solicitaions. If a list server tries to deliver an email a resonable number of times and it consistently bounces back, then the address should be auto-deleted from the business' server. This should be a simple process requiring no human intervention.
But then businesses say "Listeservers get 'bad' email addressws all the time. We need accurate addresses to better our business and cut costs." As a recipient, I should be able to provide to a list server whatever email address I want as long as it is a valid email address. Why? Because it's a valid address! When and if I actually read the emails the List Server sends is strictly up to me. "But wait, these bounced messages are costing the business money and bandwidth!" Yes they are; and spam and unsolicited email costs me, the recipient money and bandwidth too. So the question is who should have to pay? The business that is initiating the mesasge, unsolicited who is ultimately tring to make money off of me, or the consumer who doesn't want unsolicited email? You spam me or send me unsolicited email, and you'll NEVER get my money.
"OK" you say, so just remove your name from our lists and we won't send you email." Again, many businesses don't even respect this. There are countless times when I have asked companies to remove me from their email lists, and for a while, I don't receive any emails, having seemingly been removed. Then, after a month or two or three later, the emails start back up. Or worse, I later visit their web site just once to check something, and again, the emails start up, again requiring me to hound them to take me off of their list. I try to follow the rules--rules the businesses often set up--but then the businesses break the rules just to try to get my money.
Finally, Gmail's targeted ads: From a consumer's perspective, Gmail's ads are VERY well done. Yes, there have been less-than-perfect ads delivered, but the fact that I'm at least getting TARGETED ads instead of general ads is a Godsend. No ads appear on anything I send out. No ads appear within the message text. They are unobtrusive, simple, and effective. Yes, I have clicked on several of them because they were very relevent. If ads need to be included in an online service, this is how I want to see them because it makes the browsing experience more enjoyable and informative.
You see, the thing many businesses are failing to see is that I actually WANT the targeted ads! Why? Because they provide me with a comparative resource when considering my purchases. I'm not a "lemming shopper" who just reads an email message and buys the product. Experience has shown me that it is essential to do comparisons prior to making a purchase, especially one online. Tools like Gmail's targeted ads and Google's AdSense ads are just a couple tools that assist me in making these purchase decisions. If a business' service or product is truely superior and cost-effective, then I'll buy it. If not, then I'll go elsewhere. Gmail is simply doing for me what I would be doing anyway.
I have to admit that while I can respect the concerns of businesses who claim that targeted ads will present links to their competition, the problem goes back to what I said above: I, the recipient want full control over how I "experience" an email message. If I don't want to see graphics, that should be up to me. If I don't want businesses tracing my opens and clicks, I should have the freedom to control that. If I want targeted ads to be included, I should be allowed to do that. It should not be the sender who determines how the recipient "experiences" a message. If you are going to block me because I choose how I want to view my messages, go ahead, but then you have lost me as a customer.
The issue is definitely a two-way street, but when businesses start taking up all the lanes, the customer has to start taking some of the road back.
