..a violation of my privacy.

I don’t think this is a big deal, and it’s certainly not surprising.

UPDATE: Mathew Ingram says get a grip. A poll of Mashable readers rings similarly.

UPDATE 2: Paul Kedrosky wasn’t surprised either.

Stan says:

One thing to keep in mind here is that Gmail is free, and the old proverb about getting what you paid for applies here.

Michael says: even if it was paid service, the sheer scale would preclude any quick reaction for your otherwise mission critical email, and the terms of service would preclude any liability for your loss.

Yes, if you really want to parse your social network ever further online, you can engage Gmail for help.

Just keep an eye out for malware while you’re doing it.

Google bought another: first FeedBurner, and now Postini. I say another because these are both Mobius/Foundry Group/Brad Feld/Ryan McIntyre related companies - and congratulations are surely well deserved. I won’t comment on what Google should do with Postini - Fred Wilson has already done that, and I’m not particularly “spam inclined”. But I will say some of Fred’s comments are spot on, while others could use a little work:

• False positives on validation emails are a big problem. But that’s really an issue for those sending the email.
• Valid items in the spam folder are only a problem if you receive such enormous volumes of email from such a wide array of senders at a single email address that you are 1) certain something really important is falling through the cracks, and 2) rarely bother to clean it out your spam folder the first place.
• Reputation will remain a problem until 1) the powers that be agree on a open, royalty free, inter-operable standard, or 2) Google listens to Fred while everyone on the planet simultaneously switches to Gmail.

The perception seems to be there is only one box. The real winner is going to be the one that thinks outside of it, and convinces the casual email user to follow suit.

UPDATE: More background on Postini, from Ryan.

I have precisely three contacts in my database, and one of those steadfastly refuses being synced to the Blackberry so I’m not worried either way. But for the very popular set who also happen to be cheap enough to use a free email service and silly enough to store their Rolodex in one, Gmail might pose a problem.

Gmail’s JSON platform allowed websites to hijack users’ contact lists - the site appended what’s termed a “callback” variable in the URL, and when a user that was logged into Gmail came by the hacker extracted said information. Harvesting with a twist.

Google was quick to fix the problem, but the underlying risk remains. If you leave your data on someone else’s servers, you are beholden to their security force, however strong or weak it may be. It isn’t the first time something like this has happened at a large free email service provider, and it won’t be the last.

My veterinarian and pizza delivery guy are still safe.

Sophos is warning of a phishing email offering $500 from Google’s Gmail service.

Either phishers are getting desperate, or stupid, as this has got to be one of the lamest phishing exploits ever. But with Google releasing new products all the time, even the most ridiculous of attempts is bound to garner a buck or two. Of course, there will be a politician, someplace, who will blame Google for someone, someplace, getting scammed. With any luck, the idiot who gets taken will be a teen, and then Google can join MySpace in the legislative roundup.

People are so annoyed with spam, that they seem willing to give up usability for a little better protection. Case in point, Yahoo! Mail versus Gmail.

Interestingly, I use both services for certain things, and I have found both pretty good at filtering spam. I’ve also found both about as useable as you can expect from a webmail interface. Nevertheless, I’ll stick to POP, as I don’t really care about the storage capabilities I get from outside services. I’d rather be able to drag and drop an mbox folder to my desktop, zip and encrypt - lock it away for safekeeping, away from any potential prying eyes, but still have ready access myself.

That’s my idea of usability.

***UPDATE***

For those interested, here’s a head to head comparison of the webmail programs (with Hotmail thrown in for shits and giggles).

First it was Google’s Gmail, and now it is Microsoft. SpamCop is blacklisting big companies as though they are the lead enforcer on an organized crime taskforce.

The bad of this is that a lot of helpless users are going to get their email bounced. The good part of this is that free email services are a haven for spammers, no matter what they say about security. Maybe this will force them to tighten up their ships a little more.

And again, its GMail users in the shackles. SpamCop recently added several Gmail servers to its blacklist. The reason: some spam came from those servers, and Google doesn’t pass the originating IP address of the email user. They prefer instead to push their own IP in place of the standard “X-Originating-IP” header line delivered from competing webmail providers, so SpamCop added the whole server(s).

I am not sure what Google’s beef over privacy is here, but it makes little sense to me.

First, it is extremely difficult to learn much about a sender from their IP address, other than the general locale that particular email was generated from. But why would a legitimate user care about that? The good guys aren’t going out of their way to remain anonymous (at least not yet). It’s the bad guys altering their headers, bouncing emails off open proxies, and using privacy tools to mask their real locations that you have to worry about, and an IP address in plain site is not going to bother them too much. In fact, it is a boon for them - one less thing to worry about.

On the alternative side, Brian McWilliams noted that the Gmail servers in question are not on other big blacklists, which makes you wonder how SpamCop is making decisions on their own account.

Like the AOL/MAPS problem some time ago, Gmail will likely get this straighted out. But the question remains - does the fault lie with an overzealous blacklist or an email service with some funky privacy policy?

I am not exactly sure how Gmail’s spam filters work, and likely won’t figure it out anytime soon - I flunked out of my Astrophysics PhD program, don’t you know. But I do know that spam seems to be a very subjective thing at the Google service. Some people get it, and some don’t.

I still haven’t received any through the service, and check my Entourage folders diligently. I use the POP service at Gmail, so I leave no messages on the service except those in the spam folder (which I empty roughly once every 30 days). But the real kicker is this - I use my Gmail account for all web forms, etc., considering the account disposable if need be. I get all the spam from my primary domain, which I guard with my life.

Gmail’s spam filter may learn from the spam you report, but does it get dumber from the email you keep?