The great space race
The great space race
It started off with what most industry observers considered to be an April Fools Day gag, and has quickly degenerated into what could be described as the ISP equivalent of a 'who can pee the highest' competition, with a bit of conspiratorial intrigue thrown in for good measure. Stuart Finlayson reports.
The game of one-upmanship I refer to in such delightful terms is the sudden clamour by ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to offer their customers vastly increased storage capacity on their email accounts, with the leading players in the space increasing their free storage limits by over 100 times their previous capacity. So what initiated this sudden outpouring of generosity and super sizing of email accounts?
Ironically, the email service that precipitated the radical overhaul of virtually the entire web-based email market is not even available to the general public yet, and the storm of controversy that has enveloped it since plans for its introduction were announced on April 1 may mean the proposed service may not be able offer all it initially hoped to if and when it is finally made available for public consumption.
The email service in question is Gmail, Google's first foray into the email service market, which is currently undergoing trials among a small group of invited participants.The reason that Gmail has caused such a rumpus lies in its plan to scan the content of messages sent to and from the service for keywords in order to deliver targeted ads to users.
This has led to the approval of a bill by the California state Senate that places strict limits on email service providers looking to scan customer messages for advertising and other purposes, a move clearly intended to clip Gmail's wings.
There was even a suggestion by the US-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) that the FBI were considering the possibility of using Gmail for "law enforcement and intelligence investigations." Google subsequently issued a denial that it has had any contact with the FBI regarding the design of Gmail, but added some fuel to the rumour by refusing to confirm or deny whether or not it has discussed licensing its search technology to the government or the private sector.
In spite of all that, Gmail still remains on course for full public launch later in the year. Not wishing to be left trailing behind the new kid on the email hosting block, the two established players who dominate the space - Microsoft and Yahoo-have both disclosed plans to counter the threat of Gmail with vastly improved storage limits. Hotmail's free service will now offer 250MB of storage, compared to its current offer of what now looks a thoroughly miserly 2MB to 250MB, while Yahoo has upped the storage capacity available to its free users from 4MB to 100MB. Neither match up to Gmail's offer though.
That has been left to one of the other, smaller players, who have seized on the opportunity presented by the arrival of Gmail to gain some attention and grab a larger share of the market. Spymac, a web hosting company for Mac users, has matched Gmail's offer of 1GB of free storage.
The upshot of it all is that web-hosted email users will now be able to send, receive and store far more documents, images, reports and files than has ever been possible before, free from any concerns over filling up their own, or anyone else's inboxes.
And for this, to Gmail, as intrusive as it may or may not turn out to be, we should give thanks.
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