Earlier today I got three more invitations to hand out to Gmail (after three last week too), and tonight I got another five.
I have read some speculation that Gmail would slowly fill up their user base instead of opening the flood gates. They did just add Safari support, so maybe they are ready.
sounds plausible
Make it a luxury item so people don't start to think about the implications of a third party with no accountability changing the text of the email they send to whatever that third party wants.
Inserting advertising is only the first step, next they might start removing names and URLs for products competing with their advertisers or changing those names and URLs to point to their advertisers...
sounds plausible
Yeah, I don't buy this at all.
If *anyone* started to change the actual physical text of the email you were writing (I'm not talking about a post-script advertisement here) then I think we could have a legitimate case for mail fraud, which is a pretty serious deal.
I really doubt that Google is the Big Brother here.
Still wanted
I'd like to have one myself - I'm sure lots of folks do. I really don't have that air of self-importance or paranoia to believe that my e-mail is so incredibly special that anyone (or anything) is going to go hunting through it, or that Google is planning some sort of diabolical advertising scheme to destroy me, or for that matter will pretend that I recommended Microsoft instead of Apple.
What advertising?
What advertising... e-mail sent from Gmail (at least from my account) doesn't have anything tagged on... not even a "this was sent by Gmail" line or anything.
sounds plausible
They don't change the text. They have no interest in changing the text (it would be incredibly costly to do so). That would be a foolish business hardly worth the effort.
As for advertising, the only new thing here is AdSense. Other email systems have inserted ads at the ends of messages, in the message HTML, or on the web page that displays the message to the recipient.
If you don't like it, you don't have to use it. If you don't use it, you won't have to deal with it. It's not up to you to tell people how they have to read their email.
I am not handing out invitations
For those that have emailed my to ask for an invitation: I have plenty of friends and family in line to receive the invitations, so I am not looking beyond that list. Nobody needs to email me asking for an account.
The price of the Gmail accounts on EBay are getting lower everyday, though. :)