$5 a month US-based Schnail Mail.
We _won't_ open your mail, because you pay us. But hey, we _will_ pass it on to the Government, and you'll still pay us.
Think we're a better option? Go ahead. Give us your money!
Free Schnail Mail for life
81–88 of 88 posts
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#82Seems like it could be argued both the gag, Schnail Mail, and the real gmail are fairly upfront in the relationship with the user. Advertising is present. Obviously, some technical differences but it IS disclosed!
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm convinced of the opposite: humans judge basing on incomplete and incorrect data, they are often malicious and selfish and blinded by personal gain. Computers don't have prejudices, don't have a motive, and work on the specific task without being sidetracked by feelings.
Computers follow instructions of the programmers. If the programmer is good, the computer has the same prejudices. Specifically, if the programmer wants to find juicy gossip, a computer lets her do it faster. If the programmer respects users' privacy, so will the computer. (If she's not good, the computer has random prejudices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#Uncarved_block )
I partly disagree for the following reasons:
1) If the programmer is good the computer COULD show prejudices. It's not an implication. I can be a racist bigot, but if I'm a good programmer I will not prevent login for the users 晴輝, Abd al-Aziz or 湘. I can build a watermill and it will not have prejudice, it will just do a job.
2) The programs running in such big companies are peer reviewed, so the inner workings are known and checked by at least two people. You cannot do that to human beings. You don't know what they are ultimately trying to do AND you cannot have at least two people checking on them. If now you're thinking of parents, remember that they have a limited influence on a person.
3) Random prejudice could still work, just like random noise, but I still disagree on the prejudice part.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#84This argument is really vacuous and makes an inappropriate analogy. First, we need to distinguish between attaching ads to the mail experience versus injecting them into the actual content . In the original post, this service would actually open these letters and insert ads into them. This is not even remotely comparable to what most email providers do. They insert ads around the service, but never actually alter the…
> This is not even remotely comparable to what most email providers do. They insert ads around the service, but never actually alter the content of the email http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57594819-93/google-starts-p...
I thought someone might bring this up. This still isn't comparable to altering the actual content of your mail. The ads, though displayed with all of your genuine mail, are still discreet items and are noninvasive. This type of advertising is quite similar classic snail mail, where junk mail is mixed in with regular mail.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree with the premise that the large scale systematic privacy violations and surveillance by on the worlds most powerful corporations is the minor threat. In my opinion, this is the greater threat to our society, and individual criminals compromising individual email accounts is just minor criminal activity, which has always existed in one form or the other. I believe you mistake immediacy for relevance.
I think government surveillance is an issue because people can be arrested or harassed for things. I still don't see what harm can come from a private company having my data as long as they don't share it or use it for something nefarious. I don't see the threat of that happening with google. To be clear these are two very separate issues: government surveillance and privacy policies of corporations. We agree on the…
Big difference. We are the government and have at least the illusion of changing overreaching government policies (and the recent Obama speech shows that it is at least possible to get them to recognize that).
There is NOTHING we can do to change Google.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Computers follow instructions of the programmers. If the programmer is good, the computer has the same prejudices. Specifically, if the programmer wants to find juicy gossip, a computer lets her do it faster. If the programmer respects users' privacy, so will the computer. (If she's not good, the computer has random prejudices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_koan#Uncarved_block )
I partly disagree for the following reasons: 1) If the programmer is good the computer COULD show prejudices. It's not an implication. I can be a racist bigot, but if I'm a good programmer I will not prevent login for the users 晴輝, Abd al-Aziz or 湘. I can build a watermill and it will not have prejudice, it will just do a job. 2) The programs running in such big companies are peer reviewed, so the inner workings are…
> I can be a racist bigot, but if I'm a good programmer I will not prevent login for the users 晴輝, Abd al-Aziz or 湘.
However, if you were a programmer with a very insular mindset, you could create a system without support for such non English names, by not even considering that non English users would use the service. Just an example of a prejudice that could show though.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
I partly disagree for the following reasons: 1) If the programmer is good the computer COULD show prejudices. It's not an implication. I can be a racist bigot, but if I'm a good programmer I will not prevent login for the users 晴輝, Abd al-Aziz or 湘. I can build a watermill and it will not have prejudice, it will just do a job. 2) The programs running in such big companies are peer reviewed, so the inner workings are…
> I can be a racist bigot, but if I'm a good programmer I will not prevent login for the users 晴輝, Abd al-Aziz or 湘. However, if you were a programmer with a very insular mindset, you could create a system without support for such non English names, by not even considering that non English users would use the service. Just an example of a prejudice that could show though.
True, but by definition a good programmer should take non English names into account.
;-)
It is more an example of random prejudice introduced by a programmer. In that case I retract some of my points.
Re: Free Schnail Mail for life
#88Google could offer a $20/month no-ads no-tracking email service. How many privacy conscious people are willing to pay that? Its not Google deciding to do this, its just ourselves.
Google does offer a $5/month no-ads email service called Google Apps. According to their homepage, 5 million businesses have chosen that. http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/ No tracking is trickier, who would believe Google (or any business) if they claimed they didn't track their customers? The lack of ads you can verify for yourself.
Yes, but that's not an option for personal email.