ita - you could always set up an email form with a CAPTCHA thingie. You lose some of the simple, but you won't get any (or very little) spam.

I hate CAPTCHA. 1/3 of the time I seem to get it wrong myself.

I liked the idea of code that browsers rendered but had stray stuff in the HTML that'd misdirect bots. But I figure the next step in spam evolution is CSS2 compliance.

I lurve my gmail. Especially the part where I can chat with other gmailers while I'm at work. But aside from that I love how it remembers the email address of everyone I've ever emailed so if I can recall just a few letters in their addy it will give me a drop-down of choices. I love how I can search my mail or the web right from the home page and that it never permanently deletes anything. I love that my top few contacts are always in a list to the left so I can simply hover over their name and choose to email or (if they have gmail) chat with them.

But, but, integrated advertising! Lack of privacy! Just me, then?

Don't all free webmail accounts have advertising? Some in the email bodies too.

SMTP...well, it's more secure than posting in Bitches, but it's absolutely not secure. Any of the stops an email takes as it bounces from source to destination can be examined by someone with admin rights on that machine--as well as at either the source or the destination.

Just because it often goes straight to where it was sent doesn't mean you should think of it as not private--and the less money it's costing you the less private it is.

Honestly the only time I even notice the advertising in gmail is when it's funny in relation to content or a total non-sequitor. I hadn't thought about the privacy issue until you brought it up Liese, but ita makes a good point too.

eta: in fact this is pretty much the only ad I ever see:

Jack Bauers Watch on 24 - www.koboldwatch.com - The Kobold Phantom Chronograph. Worn by Kiefer Sutherland on "24."

because I almost always have something in my inbox titled "watch" on account of I copy and paste all the b.org youtube links into it to watch when I get home from work.

Don't all free webmail accounts have advertising?

Yeah, but not targeted, right? So my content isn't going into some database somewhere to aggregate?

You're right about smtp, though. I almost headed pgp territory, but I couldn't 'cause my sister was out of territory and in illegal export range. So it wasn't useful to me.

Targeted doesn't require aggregated content, and aggregated content doesn't mean anyone ever looks.

I have no idea if Google cares what's in my emails. I just have no reason to think they (as in humans) care more than Yahoo or Hotmail.

Email has no real security. Any electronic communication (email, text messaging, IM, phone calls) should be thought of as sending a postcard routed through whatever law enforcement office you least want to read it. Encryption can provide a modest amount of security, but not that much. I hate it in principle, but fear it less in practice. Anyone who monitors my electronic communications extensively deserves the deep boredom they will subject themselves to.

There are degrees of this of course, I reserve gmail for lists and various types of public communication where I receive huge numbers of emails. But I doubt my paid comcast email has substantially more personal privacy than gmail.

If your webmail has a spam filter, the content is being scanned by a bot before it comes to your inbox. All Google's done is have that same bot also flag adwords.