Earlier this week Google announced they have opened their Gmail e-mail service to all. In the past you either had to know someone who could send you an invitation or more recently be able to receive a confirmation /activation registration code via a cell phone text message.
This announcement spawned an interesting discussion on the CyberNet Forums, Gmail finally really open to everyone!!!!. It is noteworthy to point out that many people say Gmail has the best spam filter of most web based e-mail services, but now that it is open to all what is to stop spammers from creating multiple accounts? I’ve seen this happen on Hotmail, Lycos and Yahoo. I was looking over the sign-up form and noticed a field for secondary e-mail. I was thinking this would be used to send an activation/confirmation e-mail, but unfortunately this field is optional. Per the help screen the secondary e-mail is used for log-in problems or for Google to contact you in the event of unusual activity.
So, should we start taking bets as to when Gmail will become over-run with spam accounts? Or how long will it remain open to all?
I notice the Google site states: “Free email with 2.8GB storage and less spam.” Just LESS spam not NO spam.
I don’t think the invitation system was that a big obstacle for spammers. It was quite easy to find someone who would send you an invitation, and once you were in, nothing could stop you from sending *yourself* up to 50 invitations. Of course, each invitation granted you the right to 50 MORE invitations, and so on. And even when the 50 invitations were all spent, gmail frequently reset the counter to 50… So I guess spammers had found their way in gmail long before it opened to everyone.
I don’t really know how other mail providers work, but in gmail if you get a spam in your inbox, you have a “report spam” button ready for it. So I guess that one you press this button, it will (obviously) inform gmail and benefit for every other gmail users. As a matter of fact, I get about 15 spam every day, but I hardly ever get one in my inbox –they are all correctly identified by gmail and sent in the spam folder.