Does Gmail deserve a chance?

Spinner

According to Privacy International, it's time to take up lances and don helmets against Google's new Gmail service and its robotic hoards of scanners. Free e-mail with huge storage sounds great, but PI has already complained to information authorities across Europe that Gmail is not to be trusted because it will take our data and not guarantee its security. The user agreement is dangerous, says PI.

So far, though, Google hasn't behaved in an aggressive way towards its users. It may do in the future--it's all very well saying that the company will "do no evil", but you'll be hard pressed to find any organisation outside Satanists'R'Us who'll say different. Yet on existing evidence, Google has been good. It hasn't lied to me or taken my money under false pretences. Or at all: it's merely delivered years of fabulous service for nothing. It deserves the benefit of the doubt, and Google is working hard at addressing the more draconian analyses of its user agreement before launch. And if it doesn't--well, you can always just not sign up.

Source: Zdnet