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Gmail Addresses For Sale 422
challahc writes "For the low, low price of $199, you too can be one of the lucky testers of Googles new Gmail service. Just Ebay It! This CNet News story has the details." Bill Walsh adds "The account for hackers@gmail.com is asking 200 dollars! Is it a good idea to buy anything that's in beta? Couldn't Google just wipe out all of the beta accounts when the service starts up?"
Slashdot = News.com + 2 days (Score:5, Funny)
Gmail isn't bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Gmail isn't bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gmail isn't bad (Score:4, Funny)
I would've liked to see @goomail.com though
Re:Slashdot = News.com + 2 days (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdot = News.com + 2 days (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slashdot = News.com + 2 days (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot = News.com + 2 days (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OT:Slashdot = News.com + 2 days... or more (Score:3, Offtopic)
Even more wacky than that (Score:3, Funny)
Is when the story is accepted and then immediately shows up in the "two days ago" column, with the timestamp exactly 48 hours wrong.
CNN? (Score:3, Funny)
We all know the editors don't read the articles, but do they even read the submissions?
ATTN: Timothy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:CNN? (Score:3, Insightful)
breaking news! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:breaking news! (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:breaking news! (Score:5, Funny)
That's going to be a man with one huge fucking johnson.
LK
Re:breaking news! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:breaking news! (Score:5, Funny)
Ebay (Score:3, Funny)
paying for free mail? (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet those employees are in the beta already (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:paying for free mail? (Score:3, Informative)
It is very ackward to get used to, but once you do it is very nice.
It pains me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Post rate? (Score:5, Interesting)
Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Smart (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Smart (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Smart (Score:5, Funny)
the MOST spam free.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Ebay (Score:5, Informative)
Of course (Score:5, Funny)
Um... yeah.... that's why they are selling it NOW, hello.
Re:Of course (Score:5, Funny)
Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale (Score:5, Insightful)
$200 for a spam account!
Re:Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale (Score:5, Informative)
Soko
Re:Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale (Score:5, Insightful)
[ ] 100
[ ] 500
[ ] 1000
[ ] 2000
other GMail users have recieved an e-mail with the same content...
Too many false positives. There are such things as mailing lists, not to mention various automated alerts for bill payment, etc that you do want to receive, and which might vary only in a few details from thousands of others sent simultaneously -- with the obfuscation standard in spam you can't just look for identical messages.
Re:Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale (Score:3, Interesting)
The combination of that and a whitelist for all your mailing lists (how many are you subscribed to for which spammers use the source address as well?), and everyone who sends you bil
Re:Whoa... that's a lot of accounts for sale (Score:5, Informative)
Registering several addresses in the beta? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can imagine that there will be a rush of registration when it goes out of beta. Unless the beta testers have already taken all the "cool" addresses, and only the "hotstudabc666" ones are left...
Re:Registering several addresses in the beta? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Registering several addresses in the beta? (Score:5, Informative)
this is untrue. (Score:4, Informative)
I had to use the service for a week before I could invite anyone.
Re:Registering several addresses in the beta? (Score:3, Informative)
This is pathetic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is pathetic (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)
I was very impressed. Simple, clean. happy.
Re:This is pathetic (Score:4, Informative)
You can put a special tag on messages that are important.
It auto completes addresses you've used before. It's spam function I half want to see in use, and half don't.
Re:This is pathetic (Score:3, Informative)
And to be on topic, I guess the article only demonstrates that some impatient people also have money they don't need to spend wisely.
Ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)
But then again, if people really do pay that much money for a damn name, then there's not much one can do about it. It just sounds kind of stupid to me.
Account wiping (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an account (Score:4, Funny)
I have a G-mail account. I know many people who are interested in getting one, so I'll just make sure I'll g-mail them content which contains the words 'e-bay' 'beta' and '$199' and the advertisement on e-bay should come up pronto at the end.
Spam (Score:3, Insightful)
Omg... (Score:5, Funny)
Hackers? Bill? eBay? CNN? Cnet? Google? GMail? Beta?? $199 (cost of Linux Walmart PC?) After seeing every one of those keywords appear in their own slashdot story each day, seeing them in ONE story at once just boggles the mind.
Simple answers (Score:4, Interesting)
No.
Yes.
Please, just because it's on eBay doesn't mean it's worth buying. Some people out there really need to realize this fact.
$200 (Score:5, Funny)
A bunch of unsold invites (Score:3, Informative)
Isn't it time... (Score:5, Insightful)
gmail beta testing (Score:5, Informative)
Like: No spam. Not a single freaking message. Either they have an excellent filter or I haven't spread it around enough. Let's try an experiment: sclifford@gmail.com [mailto]. Guess that'll be a good test of their spam filter. Cringe.
Anyway, the interface is uncluttered - just the gmail logo and a "star" flag for important messages. Everything else is hyperlinks or dropdowns. It's simple and fast.
But as a web application developer, I'm underwhelmed so far.
I think a simple icons-w/text-based GUI is easier to work with and not terribly bandwidth intensive. Anyway, there's no way to import my contacts yet, or my address book, or a PST file (or other mail format), or import mail from another service (that's stretching).
Anyway, while I think it's crass to sell your gmail account (and probably isn't kosher), doubly so for those who buy one. It's free, people - get a blogger account and make your own. Caveat emptor - it ain't worth $199.
Re:gmail beta testing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:gmail beta testing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:gmail beta testing (Score:5, Interesting)
I do have to say that the little one button keyboard shortcuts are amazing. If only Gmail had the ability to download from another postbox.
Re:gmail beta testing (Score:3, Funny)
I got one on Ebay using "Buy It Now" for $19.99 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I got one on Ebay using "Buy It Now" for $19.99 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I got one on Ebay using "Buy It Now" for $19.99 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I got one on Ebay using "Buy It Now" for $19.99 (Score:3, Funny)
This is pretty lame. (Score:3, Interesting)
Toss in an autoresponder (or a script which has a web interface, logs into gmail, and sends attachment to other email addresses, or even just other gmail addresses) and you have a great warez, porn, or whatever you want distribution system, WITHOUT the kind of clauses that come with buying webspace against certain content. (If they tried making you agree to that, their admitting to reading private email and that would piss alot of people off.)
I know people who pay alot more than the $50 most of these are paying and who pay it monthly for a gig of storage on a fast server.
Another possible use, offsite backups, get enough gmail accounts to hold your critical data backups. Have an automated script that encrypts the data then emails it to your gmail account.
Here is the bad flipside to all this though, whether google wipes these accounts or not it doesn't matter. What do you think google is going to do when it finds out people are paying $50 just for a beta account? What do you think the odds are going to be of us getting free gmail after this?
I'd pay for it... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm going to be leaving for college soon...my email address probably won't be coming with me, because I won't be on that ISP any more.
Re:I'd pay for it... (Score:3)
$200 for an email address? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:$200 for an email address? (Score:5, Funny)
You do realize (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You do realize (Score:3, Informative)
Preface: My name is Eric.
I was given the opportunity to get a beta test account, so I naturally tried "eric@gmail.com."
No go-- the system told me it wouldn't allow any user names less than six letters.
So I can guarantee your story will never happen exactly as you describe it.
Gmail beggers (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not kidding!
Why the hell is everyone so hyped up to get one? Are these people who honestly want a cool web mail service earlt? Is it a status symbol? Are these people mostly spammers trying to get accounts in order to run experiments on their filters, so as to better be able to defeat them later? Are they spammers trying to get as many accounts as possible so they can automate the process of marking spam as not-junk to try to break Google's distributed Bayesian filter system?
Re:Gmail beggers (Score:5, Insightful)
Gigabytes for free = untraceable free WaReZ.
Re:Gmail beggers (Score:5, Insightful)
Google can just lock the number of IPs that can access an account in X amount of time.
Say, 1 every minute, or 5 every 20 minutes.
This would have NO effect on 100% of the customer base and shut down the "transmit stuff using google as the warez site" option, since Warez works around "swarming".
Gmail doesn't allow EXE attachments (Score:5, Informative)
- John Harris
Re:Gmail doesn't allow EXE attachments (Score:3, Informative)
The AC respondent is right however, in that a simple XOR could make it quite a bit harder for Google to detect EXEs. Certainly not insurmountable, mind you, but harder. More expensive computat
1.?, 2.?, 3.Profit (Score:5, Funny)
Editor 1: "We seem to be running low on funds, quick, point at something!"
Editor 2: *points at old mac in corner*
Editor 1: "Quick, put it up on e-bay, we'll run a story on vintage macs on e-bay!"
Editor 2: *Violently laughs, coughing up blood*
Editor 1: "Oooo, does e-bay have a policy on bodily fluids, I can feel another story coming on..."
Looking for... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Looking for... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Looking for... (Score:3, Funny)
--
usernames have to be at least 6 chars, sorry
gspots?
hey the more the merrier!
Google's response to ebay sales (Score:5, Informative)
Btw, this is the response from Google to EBay sales:
-----
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 16:25:07 -0700
From: "Gmail Team" Add to Address Book
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [#9562759] GMAIL on Ebay !
Hello xxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
Thank you for your interest in Gmail.
Unfortunately, the popularity of Gmail has led some people to try and profit from selling invites to sign up for a Gmail account. Google is in no way associated with and does not approve of people auctioning or selling Gmail invitations. Consequently, Google cannot validate the authenticity of any Gmail invitations except those distributed via official channels.
If you purchased a Gmail account invitation through an online auction site, such as eBay, we suggest filing a complaint against the seller with the site's user protection services. We look forward to announcing a wider release of Gmail in the future, and do not encourage those interested
in Gmail to purchase an account through an online auction.
Sincerely,
The Gmail Team
Real hackers... (Score:5, Funny)
beta accounts to get wiped out? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, Google could in theory wipe out all the beta accounts to staert with a clean slate. But I can't immagine why they would want to do so in this case. Perhaps you are thinking of the way game companies like Blizzard handle beta programs for their multiplayer games. In that case, there is a competitive advantage to those who have had longer to build up their diablo characters, so beta accounts disappear in the interest of fairness. However, since email is not a game, the only point to wiping the beta users is if they want to seriously piss a bunch of people off, especially those who have been promised that they could save all their email on it until the end of time.
So, if you want that email address that badly, go ahead and buy it and give us poor folk something to roll our eyes at. On the other hand, this might violate google's gmail EULA, though I doubt anyone's taken the time to read through it all yet...
I can see it now... (Score:5, Funny)
hackers@gmail.com - $200
CowboyNeal@gmail.com - priceless
There are some things money just can't buy... For everything else, there's eBay.
I can't remember... (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot needs one of those weather maps with all the love/hate relationships with companies...
"Slightly heated discussion will take place today about the Google IPO, SCO still firmly in the outhouse, and there's a 30% chance that IBM will be favored with positive comments..."
-Adam
I have a gmail account (Score:5, Informative)
Google Has Discovered Step Two! (Score:3, Funny)
somebody ought too...... (Score:4, Funny)
microsoft@gmail.com
should be worth a few million
LOL
Google and Privacy/Security (Score:4, Insightful)
Things like credit card numbers, bank data, passwords etc. will be perfectly safe, even if the data is scanned. Google are smart enough not to have the publicity problems they would get if they revealed any private info, and it's not really as if anyone cares what my email says. They are scanned for advertising purposes, they are not proof read to see if anything interesting is happening in my life. I feel safe because I know Google won't do anything with my financail details because they have PR people who know that would cripple their service uptake and I know they couldn't care less about my personal life.
Having said that, for me and I'm sure plenty of other slashdotters it's a moot point - I have my own mailserver which I can check on my home machine via thunderbird, my phone via the built in GPRS mail client and from anywhere else with a browser via squirrelmail. 10GB storage, no attachment limits and unlimited addresses I can check from anywhere - it's easily worth what I pay for it.
Lawyers... (Score:3, Insightful)
huh?? (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I would pay (Score:5, Funny)
How can