If you are Canadian, of legal age and meet several other minor requirements today is the day to vote. Get out to your polling station and do your duty. If you don't have a voter registration card, only minimal identification is required to vote.
20 minutes to vote.
4 years to wish you had.
Your choice.
Despite the fact that I think most of the concerns wrt GMail are overblown there are a couple of ideas that have recently come to my attention that deserve some thought.
What if a company that uses the AdWords service decides to sue Google for breach of contract for failling to provide service in relation to the AdWords presented in the GMail interface.
Say that Company X has proof in the form of a GMail account that contains emails that should see certain AdWords ads display and did not get them. If their lawyer is big enough and smart enough, the entire GMail repository (or at least a sizable reference portion) might be required as evidence for or against. This would make your emails a part of the public record. While I am under no illusions about the 'privacy' of email, the idea that my communications might be a part of the public record without my approval is a sobering thought.
Perhaps I will just use it for mailling lists and website signups afterall.
PussyRanch hits another one out of the pork:
The Stepford Wives has just been remade. What a coincidence that Nicole Kidman and Faith Hill appear in this film, since they're living examples of the Stepford aesthetic at work. Nicole Kidman was once a windblown, freckle-faced, unconventionally-gorgeous redhead who has lately transformed herself into a blonde, freckle-devoid Botox addict. Faith Hill used to look like a normal person in the early stages of her career; once she started selling records, she made the transition to full-fledged Barbie. You'd think Frank Oz would know better than to cast these ladies, seeing as he's spent the last twenty-some years fist-fucking a charismatic pig puppet.
Directed to no one in particular because I am seeing more and more people take this stance.
If you don't accept/reply to messages from Gmail your gesture is worth less than the click you didn't take.
Want secure email? Get a cert and encrypt your messages. Only send messages to people on your same server. Make sure no one else has access to the server. Only you. Because as soon as that message leaves your client it is vulnerable to attack.
Now is this likely to occur? Unless you are some sort of leet cracker duude or on some govy watch list or undersurvelllience guess what... Your rantings and "insights" have less value to the BigBrother complex than they do to the poor sap to which they were sent.
Your messages are only valuable as part of a larger statistical model. If you have had an expectation of privacy when dealing with email you have been sadly mistaken.
