Privacy concerns with Gmail: When reading about Google's much-hyped plans to provide email, make sure to read the fine print: Gmail will allegedly be superior to Hotmail and Yahoo because it'll help organize your mail using technology that may invade your privacy. The Guardian reports:

the company revealed it would be employing technology that would search through the contents of its users' emails, thereby enabling it to place related adverts alongside those emails. If, for example, a user mentioned DVDs in the text of his or her email, then Google could attach an advert for a company selling cut-price DVDs...

'It's absurd that using a communications medium should subject one to privacy-invasive advertising,' said Chris Hoofnagle of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre. 'Why not put an operator on the phone to listen to your conversation and pitch things to you while you're talking? You'd say that's ridiculous. Well, this is ridiculous. We have a norm in this country not to allow commercial interests to interfere with our communications.'