MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 2 April 2004 — Online search engine leader Google Inc. plans a free e-mail service providing 250 to 500 times more storage space than market leaders Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp., delivering the latest challenge in a fierce fight for web supremacy. But there’s a catch to the new service announced Wednesday: Google’s computers will scan e-mails to deliver targeted advertising.
Google’s service, called “Gmail,” will offer 1 gigabyte of storage space, roughly 500,000 pages of e-mail. Gmail users will be able to receive up to 10 megabytes in a single e-mail — more than the free services of Yahoo and Microsoft’s Hotmail allow to be stored in an entire mailbox.
Gmail also will enable its users to type a keyword into a built-in search box to find information contained in their e-mailboxes within seconds.
“We think e-mail is one of those things that is not as useful and as well organized as it should be,” Google co-founder Larry Page said during an interview. “People have been asking us to do this for a long time.”
Officials at Yahoo and Microsoft’s Hotmail division declined to comment on Google’s announcement.
Yahoo and Microsoft recently announced plans to challenge Google’s dominance in Internet searches. Google’s technology is behind nearly four out of every five web searches, and the privately held company has recently unveiled a series of improvements to protect its turf.
Google hopes to turn a profit from Gmail by programming its computers to dissect the topics being discussed in the e-mails and delivering text-based ads related to the subjects. For instance, an e-mail discussing an upcoming concert might include a link from a ticketing agency.
“I don’t think (the ads) will be annoying at all,” Page said. “We think this will give us a business model that will work and allow us to provide a high-quality service.”
Page said Gmail should not raise serious privacy concerns because Google plans to closely guard the content of the e-mail messages. Ads are unlikely to accompany most e-mails, he said.
Analysts said that Google could shake up the free e-mail market, which is led by Yahoo, with 52.6 million unique users per month in the United States, according to a February survey by online research firm comScore Media Metrix.
Hotmail is next, with 45.4 million users. AOL has 40.2 million paying users.
For now, Google is opening up Gmail only to invited users but expects to make it accessible to everyone within a few weeks, Page said. People interested in signing up for an e-mail account are being encouraged to register at www.gmail.com.
