• by April 23, 2004

We've signed up for Google Gmail accounts here, via invitations from the Google gang.

So far, our Gmail experiences have been limited to a few casual emails to friends and forwarding articles to ourselves. There haven't been as many text ad links accompanying our emails--well, so far, at least. Perhaps this is because it's early yet, or our emails haven't been so exciting.

Three text links did accompany an article from the Wall Street Journal that we emailed to ourselves. The article appeared in today's newspaper and in the Online Journal--it was on Google's trademark issues. Along the right-hand margin of the email, links from AuctionSniper.com, BidSniper, and AuctionTamer appeared.

Interestingly, an email message to a friend asking about the going rate for airfares to Barcelona didn't deliver any travel links. Mmmm. Does Gmail know we're staging a setup, a sting operation of sorts? Who knows...

At any rate, we're having fun with it.

But a state legislator from California is having an altogether different kind of experience. Democratic State Senator Liz Figueroa, from Fremont, Calif., yesterday said that it ought to be illegal for Google via Gmail to read consumer email in order to offer relevant text ads. Democratic State Senator Liz Figueroa is proposing a bill that would block Google's Gmail service which is currently in beta test mode; she is against Gmail's practices even if consumers agree to the scanning in exchange for free email storage. Her bill would allow providers to scan outgoing email from consumers but not incoming messages.

In these weeks before Google pulls the trigger on its eagerly anticipated IPO, it's under more scrutiny than ever. Will it recede once the buzz quadruples? Or will the scrutiny grow louder once Google is a public company and people are entitled to more of a say than ever? We'll be watching.