morganew's Profile

My Dear Beeblebrox, you keep using the words "free" and "open" and yet, to paraphrase the great Inigo Montoya "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means". The question of "free" isn't "spin" in fact it's pretty heavily discussed topic that has involved a pretty big community of people. To equate the time to update .mac with the significant questions of privacy under Google's services suggests that at least one link is in order: http://epic.org/privacy/gmail/faq.html/ The Electronic Privacy Information Center is by no means a tool of spin, and they seem pretty certain about some of the privacy concerns. With .mac, the Terms of Service (TOS) are much clearer as to what Apple can, and cannot do with the content of my mail. As you might have noted from the other comments here, many of us like .mac services for a variety of reasons. But to pretend that Google mail has no cost whatsoever defies any kind of economic sense that exists. Google makes money; they sell something - that means they have something to sell. What is their product? YOU! If you hate Apple so much as to waste time reviling their inadequate openness of platform, maybe it's best to find a new platform. I personally like the products that come out of Apple, and rarely find myself cursing their lack of "openness".

The problem is Google services are NOT free. You give up personal information and mindshare to look at ads in exchange for the service. This may be a totally acceptable exchange for most people, but we mustn't confuse it with free. If it were free, then Google wouldn't be the multi-billion dollar company they are today. Personally, I find the exchange with Apple to be a more "honest" one - I give them cash, they give me service. There's no pretense there.