You've Got Mail
Posted By Russ Roberts On June 21, 2004 @ 9:00 am In Competition | Comments Disabled
On April 1 of this year, Google announced the beta version of a new email program, Gmail, that would give users 1 GB (1000MB) of storage. In return, users would allow Google to send them various automated ads related to content in the messages received. This created a storm of controversy [1] over alleged privacy issues which ignored or deemed irrelevant that Gmail was a voluntary program. Some viewed Gmail as an April Fools hoax. One gigabyte of storage? At the time, Yahoo was offering 6 MB.
As far as I know, Gmail is still in beta, with access limited to invited guests. In the meanwhile, Yahoo has raised their limit [2] to 100MB. Yahoo also no longer counts spam as part of your storage quota. For 19.99, Yahoo offers 2GB of storage.
I still don’t know whether Gmail will really launch or how attractive it will be. But Yahoo must be worried about it. Competition is wonderful.
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[1] storm of controversy: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/33498.html
[2] raised their limit: http://mail.yahoo.com/?.intl=us
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