Gmail account: [email protected] (1 Viewer)

[Grant]

What do you think it's worth?

 

[Mark Shannon]

Why, do you have it?

 

[Grant]

yes...

 

[Craig S]

Put it on eBay and find out. Personally, I don't know why anyone would pay money for a free e-mail account, but there are obviously people out there doing it, so I say go for it & capitalize.

 

[Kyle McKnight]

Ya, it's worth nothing. It's a free gmail account, not a domain name. Maybe you can find a relative to sell it to?

 

[Rob Gardiner]

I'll trade you for [email protected]

 

[Herm C]

According to gmail's terms of use agreement users may not "Sell, trade, resell or otherwise exploit for any unauthorized commercial purpose or transfer any Gmail account"

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/...m_policies.html

Please respect the terms of agreement. It's the law.

 

[Chris]

Yep, agreed.

I don't know why anyone would pay a penny for a free email account.. it just doesn't make sense to me.. especially one that scans your email for appropriate ads to show you (reportedly)

 

[Grant]

Kyle, gmail is not open to the public yet so the accounts are valuable to some people (for example, if you wanted [email protected], you'd probably want to get an account pretty soon to make sure it wasn't claimed by someone else). See http://www.gmailswap.com. Yes, it's not a domain name, but there's only one email address [email protected] and I have it.

Herm, it's a policy not a law. And I haven't violated anything by just asking "what's it worth."

Chris, it's better than inappropriate ads. The text ads on Gmail are much less annoying than the banner ads that are on almost every other website on the Internet. This is one of the reasons why people love Google also.

 

[Chris]

While true, do you have any concern with a computer on the other end reading through what's in your email to determine what's appropriate for you? Too creepy for me. Leave my email alone

 

[DonRoeber]

Unless you use some sort of email encryption, like PGP, or can ensure that the entire path that the email travels from one site to another is encrypted (you'd probably have to control the entire network for this to happen), you should treat email about the same as you treat a postcard or an inner office memo. It's quite easy to read someone else's email if you want to, even without their password or access to their computer.

Gmail is a cool service. I think it's a great new business model, and I hope Google decides to turn it into a mainstream offering. The amount of community support for a product that hasn't even been released is amazing.

 

[Rob Speicher]

None. It's not reading the e-mail, it's matching keywords to words that an advertiser specifies as appropriate for their ads. It has no context, it's not keeping a database of what you like and don't like. It's not Amazon.

Less paranoia.

To answer Grant's question: Not more than $1, I'd bet. And even then you can't sell it, so why does it matter what it's worth?

 

[Chris_Morris]

In the end, it's just an email address. Has there ever really been a market for them?

Chris

 

[Chris Farmer]

Google can toss words and contract conceptions around, but unless I'm mistaken, most of the times a EULA has been challenged in court, it's fallen, usually because what constitutes to "agreeing" to it isn't strong enough to be considered legally binding (clicking a button underneath a license nobody reads, or breaking a seal on a software envelope).

 

[DaveGTP]

Gmail invites were selling for a while, but the usage has widened to the point that they're not really selling anymore.

I like my gmail account. I know there are supposed to be ads but I can't think of one that I have seen. Should I be happy, or scared of what is going into my subconscious?