Recently the student body was informed that Virginia Tech might abandon its webmail in exchange for e-mail offered by companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. In the article, which appeared in the Collegiate Times, “Tech may outsource webmail service by fall 2011,” SGA President Bo Hart and systems engineer Ron Jarrell explained why moving to another vendor makes sense.
Although it is not set in stone which vendor Tech would outsource its e-mail to, it appears as though Google’s Gmail is more popular with students. Because of this, and the fact that the company has come under scrutiny in recent months, most criticisms in this article will be pointed at Google.
According to Hart and Jarrell, the change is being considered for three reasons: lack of space, cost and length of storage. Is there a single student who has run out of space for their e-mails? One can only imagine how many e-mails it would actually take to exceed webmail’s quota.
In regard to cost, the number is almost insignificant. Jarrell said Tech spends about $150,000 per year for webmail. Tech spends more than that on some professors. Surely the same price can be paid for the management and maintenance of the e-mails of tens of thousands of students.
Yes, the fact that old e-mails are deleted off the server after 90 days is a minor nuisance. But there are easy ways around this, such as forwarding the message to yourself at a later date, forwarding the message to a non-webmail address or saving the message to your computer.
Most students will agree that Gmail is superior to Tech’s current webmail setup in these three areas. But there is one key area in which many of the vendors, especially Google, have a horrible track record: privacy. There may be a reason why the aforementioned Collegiate Times article failed to mention outside vendors’ stance on privacy — for if privacy was the No. 1 concern when making this decision, there is a good chance Tech would not consider allowing Google, Microsoft or Yahoo to manage its e-mails.
Five months ago, then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated, “The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” Creepy is one way to put it, perhaps “privacy protection challenged” would be another.
Putting Google in charge of students’ privacy is akin to having a fox guard the henhouse. The company poses such a threat to privacy that members from both major political parties are starting to take notice. Just this past weekend Rep. Joe Barton, Sen. Mike Lee and Sen. Herb Kohl called for investigations into the company’s shenanigans.
Much of the latest controversy arises from the fact that Google collected private data from millions of users’ wireless networks. You know those cars that traversed the roadways and took pictures that make Google Maps look so cool? Well those cars were fitted with equipment that allowed them to collect personal information from your home wireless router. Information collected included Web pages users visited and pieces of e-mail, video, audio and document files.
The fact Google patrols the streets and collects private data should come as no surprise. The company, after all, joined with Microsoft and Yahoo in the enforcement of the “Great Firewall of China.” According to U.S. and British media, this means the companies helped the communist government block “politically sensitive content” to the country’s billion plus citizens — you know, sensitive subjects like the Tiananmen Square massacre, Taiwanese independence, criticism of government, democratic reform, human rights and religious beliefs outside of those sanctioned by the state.
Although it is not set in stone which vendor Tech would outsource its e-mail to, it appears as though Google’s Gmail is more popular with students. Because of this, and the fact that the company has come under scrutiny in recent months, most criticisms in this article will be pointed at Google.
According to Hart and Jarrell, the change is being considered for three reasons: lack of space, cost and length of storage. Is there a single student who has run out of space for their e-mails? One can only imagine how many e-mails it would actually take to exceed webmail’s quota.
In regard to cost, the number is almost insignificant. Jarrell said Tech spends about $150,000 per year for webmail. Tech spends more than that on some professors. Surely the same price can be paid for the management and maintenance of the e-mails of tens of thousands of students.
Yes, the fact that old e-mails are deleted off the server after 90 days is a minor nuisance. But there are easy ways around this, such as forwarding the message to yourself at a later date, forwarding the message to a non-webmail address or saving the message to your computer.
Most students will agree that Gmail is superior to Tech’s current webmail setup in these three areas. But there is one key area in which many of the vendors, especially Google, have a horrible track record: privacy. There may be a reason why the aforementioned Collegiate Times article failed to mention outside vendors’ stance on privacy — for if privacy was the No. 1 concern when making this decision, there is a good chance Tech would not consider allowing Google, Microsoft or Yahoo to manage its e-mails.
Five months ago, then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt stated, “The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” Creepy is one way to put it, perhaps “privacy protection challenged” would be another.
Putting Google in charge of students’ privacy is akin to having a fox guard the henhouse. The company poses such a threat to privacy that members from both major political parties are starting to take notice. Just this past weekend Rep. Joe Barton, Sen. Mike Lee and Sen. Herb Kohl called for investigations into the company’s shenanigans.
Much of the latest controversy arises from the fact that Google collected private data from millions of users’ wireless networks. You know those cars that traversed the roadways and took pictures that make Google Maps look so cool? Well those cars were fitted with equipment that allowed them to collect personal information from your home wireless router. Information collected included Web pages users visited and pieces of e-mail, video, audio and document files.
The fact Google patrols the streets and collects private data should come as no surprise. The company, after all, joined with Microsoft and Yahoo in the enforcement of the “Great Firewall of China.” According to U.S. and British media, this means the companies helped the communist government block “politically sensitive content” to the country’s billion plus citizens — you know, sensitive subjects like the Tiananmen Square massacre, Taiwanese independence, criticism of government, democratic reform, human rights and religious beliefs outside of those sanctioned by the state.
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