With the rise of Web 2.0 we’ve seen a huge increase in web-based technology. One major contributor to these changes in the web and its usefulness has been Google, Inc. Google is an advertising company that has made the internet very accessible through its advertising-income based search engine. They are constantly thinking of new ways to get people clicking on their adverts. The Google tagline has been ‘Do No evil’ as they offer many services based on bringing people into their search engine. They have online maps, satellite maps, pricing comparison sites, web statistics, and various other services that tie back into their web services.
One of these major services is Gmail. Gmail is a rebuild of messaging as we know it, for the ground up. It has built in email, chat, video, online calendars, online documents, archiving and many other features. Unlike other email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo, and others, this free email service is designed to scan the content of every email in the mailbox so that Google might serve targeted advertisements to user based on their emails. They can ‘profile’ a user to establish their likes, dislikes, and areas of interest. Many privacy advocates raised concerns about emails being scanned for anything other than security and virus threats.
In February 2007, Google went into the hosting business. They started a service called Google Apps. Google Apps is an online adaption of their Gmail service. The difference is that a company can use their own company domain on the Google service. Individuals can also use personal vanity domains on the service. They provide the service for free saying, don’t throw anything away. They give you free POP3 email, IMAP, online schedule sharing, mobile access… basically everything other companies are actually charging to support. How can they do this? The answer to most is online advertising.
As the IT managers for the best companies in the Asia Pacific region, AINEO has tested Gmail/Google Apps two separate times so that we can give proper feedback to our client partners. A couple of our engineers use it for personal email. We are very familiar with the services as well as many other services in Japan and abroad. We have officially tested Google Apps once in December 2008 and again in January 2010. Here are some of our observations about their service that we can share;
Apps Observations-
-Importing of email could not be done via IMAP to IMAP accounts as it timed out repeatedly. We had to use POP3 and let Google Apps/Gmail slowly import 200 messages at a time.
-As paid users ($50 USD/user/year), we were still intermittently served up ads from our mail scanned even after ‘turning off’ this service several times.
-The service is supposed to work with RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES Server). This is a bit misleading as those sites wanting to use BlackBerry have to install a BES server themselves. Google provides a BES software connector for those users who have paid accounts.
-Paid users are on the exact same servers as free users. There seems to be no technical differentiation between paid and free users.
-Paid users are assured telephone support. We were unable to get anyone via their telephone support numbers with paid accounts. We called the US helpdesk and waited on hold for 43 minutes before giving up. Thinking it might have just been a bad day for Google (there were no outages those days), we called the UK support number. We were unable to raise any support after 37 minutes on hold via their UK-based number either. It seems they do not answer their phones.
-Users are required to verify their personal or corporate domains. This is a bit of a pain and something you see at no other major web hosting company. This verification could be seen as a security tactic, but it seems a silly exercise as only domain administrators can control access to their domains by changing their DNS through their registrars..
-Deleted mail is not actually deleted. For a simple test, if you delete a message and empty it from your trash, you will intermittently find that your deleted mail comes up with a search on a word such as ‘the’ or some other content of a message.
-The user interface is simple, however everything you want to do seems to open another browser window. As a user, it is easy to get lost in the browser windows.
-In their T&Cs, there is no assurance that your data will be completely deleted from their systems even if you delete your data.
-The system slow for users in Japan. Upon a bit of checking, we found that there is no Google Apps/Gmail data in Japan. All of the data is in the United States.
-There is only one person in the Google Japan office supporting Google Apps. He is a sales manager and not doing support only promotion. When we met him, he was unwilling to give any comment to help clarify any of our questions raised other than describing how secure Google datacenters in the US were.
-Google also keeps track of every IP address you access their service from. Whether it be access via browser or IMAP. If you access from home, they have your home IP and your corporate IP. If you use Google for web search (their service is definitely still the best at this time), then they can aggregate that information with your websearch profile to your email content thereby knowing a lot more about you or your users than you may want them to know.
Conclusions-
From our research on the net and testing, Google is providing this service for a specific reason. It seems they want your data as they encourage you not to delete anything (presumably so that you can search it later). Google wants to know everything about you so they can serve adverts to you. The more they know about you, the more accurate advertising they can serve up. Privacy experts show concern that this data will be aggregated and compiled regarding you. For a corporation Google Apps/Gmail has some areas to improve;
-There is no live customer support or telephone support is available. All support is via their website. Basically, if there is no support as there is no one to call. Not a comforting word for corporations.
-Blackberry Enterprise Server is ‘technically’ supported, but in actuality you still have to get a BES server locally as they do not provide this as a part of their service. Why would an organization host (or outsource) your email just to install a BES server at your office?
-Google should clarify what they are doing with your data and why they don’t promise to delete your data from their system when you or your users do.
-All your data is in the United States. That means, no how matter how advanced the Data Centre is, your data can be subpoenaed by any lawyer in the US or the US government itself.
One security and privacy expert has described Google Apps as a basket of eggs. With all that data and personal information in once place, it would be a prime target for someone to break into. Our conclusion is if you have no budget, Google Apps/Gmail might be the choice for you as it is basically free (if you don’t mind seeing a bit of advertising). However, if the content of your email is important, private, or sensitive, you may need to confirm with your corporate lawyer regarding the location of your data.
Once Google can allay the fears data jurisdiction, implement proper Customer Service for paying clients, and clarify what they are doing with your data, Google Apps could become a serious service to consider.
They are an excellent company with its roots in advertising, so customer support may not be their area of expertise, however if they can get some firepower behind this service and clarify their intentions they could become a force to be reckoned with. Until then, we recommend you continue to use Google for what they are great at… web search. You can easily switch web search providers, but if your communications and email is locked in a proprietary cloud in another country, web-based support may be a huge disappointment. Information Technology is still far from perfect therefore is very important to have someone responsive to call or email when there are systems troubles.
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