philosophical question about gmail

[Bill Sconce]

This is going to hurt.  I'm going to have to admit ignorance, not just
of the usual sort, but in this case near-total ignorance.

            What is gmail?



On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 13:41:07 -0400
"Kevin D. Clark" <clark_k at pannaway.com> wrote:

> 
> Some of the members of this list have not signed Gmail's user
> agreement (let's call this Group A).  Others have (let's these people
> Group B).

Wait a minute.  The ignorance is not total.  I know one thing.  I know
that I'm in Group A.  I haven't signed ANYONE's user agreement recently.
(Actually, I haven't signed anyone's user agreement for at least several
years now, not since I converted to Linux.)

 
> It takes some amount of effort to belong to this group.  Why should
> the efforts of Group A be available to Gmail (in the form of raw data,
> marketing data, and potential advertising revenues) simply because
> Group B decided to sign Gmail's user agreement?

That sounds like a good question.

 
> Just wondering.  I haven't made up my mind yet about Gmail.

OK.  I'm wondering too.

(I did a search of gnhlug, found "gmail" in the subject of only two
messages, this one from Kevin and the one where Jeff says he's run
out of friends.  Some of us probably don't know what a "gmail
invitation" is either.)

-Bill