The Downide of Your ISP Turning to Gmail

SlinkySausage writes "Google is offering ISPs the opportunity to turn over their entire email operation to Google, with all customer email hosted as Gmail accounts. This would allow Google to grow its user base rapidly (Google is a distant third with 51M users compared to Yahoo's 250M and Hotmail's 228M). There are some obvious benefits to end users — Google is offering ISPs mailboxes of up to 10GB per user. APCMag.com has posted an interesting piece looking at the dark side of Google's offer. Not least is in its reinforcing of the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes along."

Eh?

[fabs64]

As opposed to it being so much easier to change your ISP email if it's hosted with your ISP?

That comment doesn't make any sense.

Just so you know, the latest versions of Firefox have spell-checking built in :-)

What's the point?

[rm999]

Why wouldn't the user just get a gmail account? Who needs the extra 8 gigs of space and the genericISP.com e-mail?

I don't understand the problem.

[khasim]

Not least is in its reinforcing of the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes along.

And ... ?

I don't see what the difference would be. Whether your email is hosted by your ISP or by Google for your ISP. It's the same account name.

If anything was a problem it would be whether Google would "index" your email so it could target ads at you.

The obvious downside...

[teh moges]

The obvious downside is that Microsoft/MSN would lose customers... What, nobody noticed that the article is one ninemsn (Australia's MSN website)? This website has been known to have one-sided (Microsoft's side) stories and "news".

Re:Eh?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Thing is, for commercial accounts Google lets you use your own domain name, e.g. [e-mail], not limited to [e-mail]. That's got to be more of an attractor than keeping the domain name of an ISP you're familiar with.

Yes there's a strong reason to keep your old email account, but for a small business it would be far more compelling to have your own registered domain I would think. Of course you could talk another ISP into hosting your own choice of a registered MX / SOA, but Google makes this sooo easy for mom & pop...

Not a Google shill, not affiliated, no I haven't done it myself. The costs are way better than hosting it yourself. Figure 10-user company at $550/year perhaps? As opposed to the cost of a server, software licenses & sysadmin, etc. There's a point where it's no longer economical, but up to that point you're in good shape. Provided you can put up with Writely etc, of course, but for email I can't think of a compelling counter-argument.

What do you call this?

[Jartan]

Philosophy majors or debaters out there must have some fancy term for this kind of misleading argument? Clearly the only thing google is doing here is offering a service to ISPs that will maintain the status quo yet the article author is glossing that over and acting like google will now be responsible for the way ISPs might use what is essentially a software package that doesn't do anything new at all.

Re:Eh?

[Lars512]

The "dark side" does seem to be not very well thought through. Basically, it argues that by giving them a much better email service (for webmail at least), customers might become more attached to their isp-specific email address. So it's actually arguing for worse ISP service, so that nobody will accept it and everyone will choose some more "liberating" mail provider. Give me a break. Better service is better service. It's your own problem if your ISP ties you in this way (they all do), and at least here there's the chance for an easy migration to a generic Gmail account if Google pursues this strategy. Customers didn't even have that chance before.

Privacy?

[kinbote]

I don't want Google reading and storing my mail in perpetual archives!

I expect the feds love all this consolidated data collection that Google makes so convenient for them.

PATRIOT ACT ring any bells?

[MilesNaismith]

If you let Google run your email for you, they will be subject at any moment to forwarding all copies of your email to any government agent that asks for it. And under the terms of the Patriot Act in the USA they can never tell you about it. Google is just another big soul-less mega-corporation that is only too happy to turn in Chinese dissidents as long as it profits.

I like the Berkeley sysadmin attitude a lot. I was talking with those guys recently and they consider themselves the guardian of campus data. If Feds show up waving a Patriot Act letter, there will be a fight over it, not just meekly handing them whatever they want.

IMAP and FORWARDS ring any bells? If there's one thing thing you know about GOOGLE it's just like MSN and Yahoo, they want to own your mindshare they do not want to share.

IMAP!!!

[mrchaotica]

If the ISP had IMAP support, that'd be a downside right there, since Gmail still doesn't!

Re:The obvious downside...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The obvious downside is that Microsoft/MSN would lose customers... What, nobody noticed that the article is one ninemsn (Australia's MSN website)? This website has been known to have one-sided (Microsoft's side) stories and "news"."

people probably didn't notice it was ninemsn because it ISN'T a ninemsn article. It is an APC article, APC are anything but Microsoft friendly, they even regularly ship linux distros on there included DVD/CD they ship with the magazine.

Re:Thin end of the wedge

[Breakfast Pants]

Free wifi for the entire city of San Francisco for one (doesn't meet your 'paid' requirement, but it does compete with ISPs, and you cannot deny that).

Article forgets...

[MetalliQaZ]

This article doesn't seem to put much effort into proving their point. In addition, they seem to completely ignore the possibility of Google forcing ISP mail users to submit to an agreement of their own devising, causing all personal email to be subject to data mining efforts. Whether it be for advertising or for future nefarious purposes, its much more of a downside than is "no domain name portability (boo-hoo)".

-d

Huh?

[watchingeyes]

How is the fact that you would be using your ISP's domain name a downside to Google Apps Partner Edition? That makes no sense.

Whether your ISP is hosting its e-mail services on Google Apps, Windows Live Mail, their own servers or wherever else, this same problem is present. This isn't a problem with Google Apps Partner Edition, this is a problem with ISP supplied e-mail services period.

Privacy issues would be a much more valid concern IMHO.

Re:PATRIOT ACT ring any bells?

[DeadChobi]

I was under the impression that the last time the Feds tried to get Google to sell out, Google fought it in court.

Re:Eh?

[clark0r]

"Not least is in its reinforcing of the attachment people have to their ISP's email address"

So how about you just register yourself another email address, just like you would if you used your ISPs regular webmail. I'm not sure how this would STOP you from changing ISPs or how it would make it harder. I've never used my ISPs email address simply because if I change ISP, I would have to inform everybody that i'd switched.

Re:ISP to user issues

[bmo]

"Iwork at a rather large ISP, and I really don't see the advantages. First off, customers always forget passwords, they already get 10MB of space per email account, and we allow 6 total, per account. (6x10=60MB)"

Wow. The local Unix BBS offers me a half gig.

Welcome to (deleted) Public Access Unix
Quotas: There is an unenforced limit of 500 megs per user.
Type "rules" for information on inappropriate use of the system.
Note: If you're a new Unix user, enter "(deleted)help" for some general hints.
>>>> No background processes are allowed!

I've got a couple of gmail accounts too. I hardly use my ISP's email because it's too limited. To top if off, you think that your company is magnanimous in "giving" 10 megs per user. Disk space is dirt cheap, and easily paid for by user subscriptions. If you're not offering a gig, which costs somewhere on the order of 30 to 50 cents in hardware, then you're not really offering anything that your customers are paying for. 10 megs/user, 60 total? Nickel and diming, literally.

--
BMO

Re:Eh?

[yulek]

until mail servers talk over encrypted connections private email is a myth.

Cost?

[lewp]

Google is being rather coy about the pricing, merely inviting ISPs and other interested parties to apply and learn more, but does suggest in its product information page that the service will be offered "affordably".

Honestly, nowadays, it's hard to imagine Google being able to price Gmail high enough that ISPs will think they can do it cheaper, better, in-house. Running email services is one of the worst shit jobs you can find in technology. Good, competent people who can actually do it right aren't cheap, because the work sucks. Keeping clueless users safe from spam and viruses (something you're actually expected to do, no matter how much they like to click on .exes from strangers who claim to be selling porno) is labor-intensive, no matter how much you automate it, just keeping up is a bitch. And the storage, CPU, and network resources required to keep things going will be increasing (faster and faster) indefinitely.

Every ISP in the world would be happy to unload their email problems on someone else. I expect Google will find a lot of takers, even if they gouge them a bit. FWIW, at least Gmail gets more things right than most ISPs.

(Note that running your own personal inbound mailserver still isn't that bad. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about large ISPs running mail farms for tens- or hundreds-of-thousands of users. I've been there, and will never touch the shit again. Hell, when I did it things were a lot easier than they are now, because the spam deluge hadn't even really started and users didn't expect all their attachments to be virus-scanned and their mail to be collaboratively filtered.)