Yesterday I posted how to make a Web 2.0 E-mail client. Although a joke, some people kinda agreed that this is the future.
Let’s consider a few use cases and let me try to make a point about this:
When OpenMoko asked me about an E-mail client, they told me it would be nice if they could show the history of activity of a person when you clicked on a person in the contact application. This included phonecalls, chat sessions, text messages and therefore also E-mail.
If everything was Google, this would mean that the entire contact management would have to be done by Google. All the data the phone needs would have to be managed by Google. All your phonenumbers, all your calls, all of your history, every every everything would have to suddenly be managed by Google. Not by your personal phone, but by Google. The one big, the one, the gigantic, Google.
I’m sure Google’s employees who have stock options are now seeing little dollar signs in their eyes. Me personally, I don’t really like the idea.
The other option is using Google’s online APIs. That could work, but then suddenly another user of my software would want to use yahoo mail, an yet another would want to use Hotmail. And another would want to use Thismail and another Thatmail. As an application developer, I would have to learn to use all the existing online APIs, and worse, all future ones too. On top of that would these E-mail monopolies get quite a large portion of your privacy too (they can easily log all the activity that you create on their server while using your phone).
Let’s try another example. Back when I was working as a subcontractor for technology companies, I remember not having the permission to and a firewall blocking me from using my E-mails from outside of the walls of the building of the company for whom I was doing contract working. And to be honest, that makes a lot of sense. I remember one of the companies forbidding the use of MSN because all the traffic was centralized at Microsoft’s servers. At first all Instant Messaging was forbidden, then they learned about XMPP (the point being: decentralization and guaranteed encryption).
You think these companies would allow me to receive their E-mails on Hotmail? On GMail? On Yahoo mail? Please keep in mind that often they are directly or indirectly competing with Microsoft, Google or Yahoo.
While everybody congratulated Jabber for decentralizing Instant Messaging, now a lot of people are telling E-mail client developers that the centralization and the monopolization of E-mail by Hotmail, Yahoo mail and GMail is a good thing.
That kinda doesn’t make a lot of sense. Does it? Anyway, I don’t think that their black and white point of view is realistic. GMail is a good service, but let us make them compete. If we don’t, nothing guarantees us that Google will keep playing nice.
I’m not one of those religious conspiracists but we’re talking here about possible privacy abuse and security concerns. These are real concerns that companies have and serious barriers to the migration of E-mail to one entity. They are among the reasons why E-mail will be decentralized and why GMail wont ever be the single solution for E-mail. No matter how many Web 2.0 enthusiasts start blogging.
It’s simply not black and white.
I think you missed the point. When you were told that the future is in web 2.0 webmails, it doesn’t mean that the future is gmail or yahoo mail.
Ok, the cool webmail at this time are gmail and yahoo mail(or whatever).
But I guess in the future you’ll be able to install such webmail on your company mail server and that’s the way I imagine email future.
The problem really is not who owns your mail, but the way you access your mail.
And, for the last 2 years, my preference goes to webmail compared to a dedicated email client. And I don’t see why this preference would change.
My Father works in a governmental job. When his organisation was audited, the auditor general involved outside consultants. One of those consultants was using hotmail to communicate. My father was very upset at how lackadaisical some people and departments can be because confidential and sensitive information is routinely discussed during an audit. He though the whole discussion shouldn’t be cc’ed to microsoft.
Policies and practices that worked okay when email was centralised and accessed by login do not work well when those practices now involve other parties, like web services. Yet to end most users, there is no big difference. It is not webmail’s fault, it is just how things are evolving. This story is, I think, a bit scary, since it shows that policies, procedures and education are all substandard for many governmental communication functions now.
(laughing)…being a security enthusiast, i believe that every point of transfer is a possible point of failure…therefore, trusting as few people as possible is best. this must be breif because im posting from a (an?) n810 with a tiny keyboard.comcast, bell* (or *bell or att) already know whatever your doing, who else would you volunteer you data to?
what the he!!z with the hardcore capcha!!! ……………….. ARGH!!
@Boke: You are right, you can have decentralized webmail too and the security/privacy depends on the security of the IMAP or web server.
The only advantage of webmail that I see is that it is easier to access it from a computer you’ve never been on. Although I always try to avoid typing in my passwords into computers I don’t know.
The big reason for having a dedicated e-mail client (and why they won’t disappear anytime soon) is that it is tailored to the specific device and/or software platform. Especially for mobile devices it is much better to have a dedicated e-mail client. You only need to set it up once and it works anywhere you go. Modest works way better on my N800 than the gmail webinterface.
@Walter :
Hum … the main security hole will still be the webmail and cross scripting … :)