[COLUG] Mail server advice

[Duane]

Scott Merrill wrote:

> I don't doubt that they are collecting information about my usage of
> the site.  They may even be collecting information about me, as an
> individual.  This is not entirely different from the way
> brick-and-mortar stores track my purchases.  It's not entirely
> different from the way Amazon.com monitors the products I look at but
> don't buy.

Well it might be second nature for some people to bleed personal
information others take some care not to bleed as fast, as for brick and
mortar stores, I generally don't like giving them any information more
then they really need, although in the day of plastic this is becoming
more difficult.

> And of course there's always the option of GPG-encrypted mail.  The
> FireGPG Firefox extension makes it easy to use GPG with the web-based
> GMail interface.

I never mentioned content specifically, even if their ads do try and
target it, but I did go out of my way to point out even meta information
can be useful.

> I know a few Google employees, and I believe that they're working hard
> to make technology do new cool and useful things.  I believe that
> they're not interested in -- or supportive of -- working for a company
> that would exploit its user base.  I might be wrong, but for now I've
> seen nothing to make me uncomfortable using Google's services.

As pointed out by Rick, direction and policy of a company can change
over time, and add into this my point about computers not forgetting and
finally we have a sprinkling of feature creep. A to B to C etc, this is
why the EFF tries to keep companies honest in some respects to prevent a
slippery slope becoming a reality...

-- 

Best regards,
 Duane

http://www.freeauth.org - Enterprise Two Factor Authentication
http://www.nodedb.com - Think globally, network locally
http://www.sydneywireless.com - Telecommunications Freedom
http://e164.org - Because e164.arpa is a tax on VoIP

"In the long run the pessimist may be proved right,
    but the optimist has a better time on the trip."