I just thought I'd throw in my two cents to this thread and say that I have no problem with what Gmail does. I have an account there and have sent multiple invites to friends for them to join the service. As a result, I find it safe for my general purpose. But the biggest thing is to just use some common sense when using the service. It's obviously not suggested to put personal identifying information such as a Social Security number or credit card info.

I agreed with all the posts above in praise of Gmail. I've tried out many other free email providers such as Hotmail and yahoo! Mail, and Gmail is by far the best.

Gmail dangerous ? Eh.. don't think so.

I really don't see what all the fuss is about here. The whole "Ad Program" idea is entirely automated, it's not like some person reads your messages. Actually, it's all done by computer, and as we all know, computers can use data, but they don't understand it, so what's the risk?

Let me put it this way. The whole idea is done by computers and not people. To say that you didn't trust the idea would mean you were, in effect, saying that you don't trust computers. And how can that be true?

A few years ago people were saying the same thing when Microsoft bought Hotmail. They were worried about information being passes along.

Gmail is google. Google has bots. I have a Googlebot that has been scanning my forum for the past week. It is part of the online life.

If you read the fine print at Gmail or any place where you receive/send emails, there are rules. Rules are meant to protect the company providing the service.

Look at your internet service provider's terms of service. Nothing is absolutely private.

Cell phone companies save text messages for quite a few years and keep them in storage in case someone wants them. Sure, let me know what I was supposed to bring home from the store June 23, 2001.

Gmail is good and I don't have to pay for it. It is no more "evil" than anything else on the web.

Only someone with something to hide would worry.

In this electronic age, there is a lot of information out there floating about, easily grabbed. Why worry?

Just enjoy the features that Gmail offers and be glad it has an overly generous storage.

From what I understand, the email scanning is realtime. They don't have individualized records, as that would sort of defeat the usefullness of search. Instead, whenever you open an email, they can just search it for relevant keywords and deliver ads. In this way, they can be "not evil", and allow you privacy, while still putting up the ads they need to make money.