Opinion

In Gmail we trust

Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
Sharing Tools:

E-mail this article:




Share on:

by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Tuesday, March 13, 2007 00:00

It's amazing how fast e-mails pile up, especially for an active student juggling numerous extracurriculars, a social life and a slew of classes. And for those utilizing a WiscMail e-mail account provided by the University of Wisconsin, it's amazing how much important data needs to be deleted on a regular basis to stay under the paltry 100-megabyte allowance. In an environment becoming increasingly dependent on Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, image files and video clips, however, what's really amazing is how insufficient the Division of Information Technology's e-mail system is compared to private offerings. According to DoIT's 2005-06 annual report, WiscMail serves more than 72,000 e-mail accounts — about 50,000 for students and 22,000 for staff — and fills about 4 terabytes (4,000 gigabytes) of storage space as of April 2006. To put that in perspective, The Badger Herald's fileserver has a capacity of about 2 terabytes — and that's supporting just one student organization's loot, not the e-mail messages of an entire Big Ten campus. Additionally, WiscMail is supported internally by DoIT personnel. Not only is the software itself updated by DoIT programmers, but the servers storing the data are also hosted and maintained by the department — no doubt a large staff commitment for a system transmitting millions of messages every day. It's obviously time for an upgrade, and we have a suggestion: Let Google take care of it. Arizona State University announced a partnership with Google last semester that allows Gmail, the search engine giant's fabulous e-mail service, to host the school's 65,000 student accounts. Students keep the @asu.edu address but lose the nasty capacity limit — Gmail accounts have a cap of almost 3 gigabytes, and the limit increases literally by the second. Additionally, students can take advantage of the advanced search and organizational features built into Gmail. The interface boasts impressive interactive features, utilizing advanced scripting technologies and an advanced AJAX-centric architecture to deliver a user experience far superior to that of WiscMail. In Gmail, pop-ups and heavy markup are a thing of the past. But the best part of the agreement is, very clearly, it's free for ASU. ASU officials said in an initial press release that Gmail has freed up ASU staffers and allowed them to refocus on "accelerat[ing] the research and learning enterprise." Though we're not sure what that means, we're fairly certain DoIT could use some extra time to fix the Associated Students of Madison's online voting system or improve usability of the enrollment monstrosity. Though some might raise privacy as a concern in entrusting a third party to handle UW e-mail, Google has a strong reputation for security and respecting users' information. The company has opposed government inquiries into its massive collections of Internet records in the past, and keeping users' data private is a huge priority for any company in the public eye. Any way you slice it, the idea seems to have merit. DoIT's current offering comes up short, and if a solution — a free one, at that — could take care of the problem altogether, it's worth pursuing.


Feedback
Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 12:48am):

You can set up to have your emails forwarded to gmail if you need more space.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 5:52am):

how?

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 9:29am):

Set your wisc account to forward to your gmail. Or you can also setup your gmail to download from a POP3 account. Look under settings.
https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=%67mail&hl=en&answer=21288

In gmail go to settings|accounts and create a new "Send Mail as" account. That why you can send mail from gmail and it will look to your recipient as if you had sent it from wisc.
https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=%67mail&hl=en&answer=22370

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 10:42am):

forwarding to gmail may help the space issue, but the UW still wastes money on maintaining its own system.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 11:17am):

I (heart) gmail.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:10pm):

Partnering with Google is a terrible idea. Not only does the UW lose proprietary control over it's email service but the door is opened for all the issues that have been raised in regards to privacy concerns with Gmail. And is another corporate partnership really necessary? It seems like it could cause more problems than it solves: If you want more space, pay the measly amount they ask for an upgrade, and to the Herald: Don't use skewed statistics about storage space. The vast majority of emails are textual and are therefore not comparable to general "filespace" servers at your paper. If you have an issue with filespace, then criticize MyWebSpace instead - which you did not even mention in your article.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:15pm):

As an appendix to my last comment: Google's reputation for privacy+freedom of information has been rocky: Google agreed to aid censorship in both China and India in order to get their foot in the door of the search engine market in each country.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:37pm):

And Google also was one of the FEW giant search engines that refused to disclose its searches to the U.S. government, as opposed to such companies like AOL, Yahoo, and MSN.

Ooh, we should be scared of Google!

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:52pm):

http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Problem-solving/browse_thread/thread/e19d6ab5d41e58eb/bd2a9386c2a1ad41

At least the editorial folks could have explored some of the cons.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:53pm):

Gmail has a history of losing their users' email and long service outages. WiscMail has highly redundant mirrored storage. You get what you pay for. Yes, 100MB stinks. Perhaps WiscMail could be allowed to look for cheaper non-DoIT storage. That is, if we are willing to sacrifice losing email every once in a while.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:53pm):

Gmail doesn't offer IMAP access. A web client is convenient at times, but too cumbersome for every day use IMO.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:54pm):

Faculty and staff also have netid@wisc.edu accounts. Students may not be concerned with privacy and intellectual property, but faculty and staff definitely are. They'd probably have to offer students a different domain for google to host. How about @students.wisc.edu?

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:55pm):

ASU hasn't finished moving to google. Don't count your chickens...

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:55pm):

Other than stock investments, Google makes their money through advertising. What if WiscMail advertised to users to recoup the storage costs?

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:57pm):

AJAX?! WiscMail's web client has been "AJAX" long before Gmail was created. In fact, I routinely find that WiscMail loads my mailbox/messages much faster than Gmail does. No comparison. Sure, Gmail has some nifty features that I like better than WiscMail's web client. It doesn't help by saying "AJAX" as if it were a specific feature.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 3:01pm):

I dare you to find a support phone number for Google. Who do I call when my email disappears?

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 3:12pm):

I have three points that may influence people's decisions whether or not to use Gmail.

The article doesn't mention Gmail recently losing some people's mail and contacts:
http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Problem-solving/browse_thread/thread/e19d6ab5d41e58eb/bd2a9386c2a1ad41

Of course, it's still in beta, so there's no guarantee that won't happen. How would you feel if a project you've been working on all semester mysteriously and irretrievably disappeared?

Secondly, MyWebSpace (https://mywebspace.wisc.edu) is the DoIT offered and recommended service for hosting files. E-mail can be used to send links to those files, and then the 100MB limit is much more manageable.

Thirdly, Google makes their money from targeting advertising based on your content. Do you feel safe having them monitor your personal e-mails to better advertise to you?

Here's Section 7 of the Terms of Use (http://mail.google.com/mail/help/terms_of_use.html):

Privacy. As a condition to using the Service, you agree to the terms of the Gmail Privacy Policy as it may be updated from time to time. Google understands that privacy is important to you. You do, however, agree that Google may monitor, edit or disclose your personal information, including the content of your emails, if required to do so in order to comply with any valid legal process or governmental request (such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court order), or as otherwise provided in these Terms of Use and the Gmail Privacy Policy. Personal information collected by Google may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Google Inc. or its agents maintain facilities. By using Gmail, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country.

....Just a couple things to consider about Gmail.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 4:07pm):

In response to the "Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:54pm)" post....I think students should very much be concerned about privacy. Take a student doing research as an example. Google can monitor and do whatever they want with it ("share" it). The student is about to submit their research to for publication but finds instead that Google has copyrighted/patented it first. It may happen, it may not, but Google reserves the right to if they so choose.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 4:20pm):

I hardly ever delete my wiscmail, and I'm not anywhere near the 100MB limit...maybe you're all just too popular.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 4:20pm):

Another response, this time to "Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 2:55pm)".

Google makes their money from advertising? Based on the content of your e-mails?

So, the Registrar's Office sends you a transcript/DARS report over e-mail and your grades are kind of low...expect to be seeing an increase in "cheap diploma" spam? Or how about offers from other educational institutions you may get higher grades at?

Oh, wait, you didn't want Google seeing/sharing your grades in the first place?

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 5:12pm):

Well Google v. DoIT hmm...you know what I really don't care and good thing because now cares that I don't and no one else cares about the original question. Wait, this was about alcoholic policies concerning IPOD use while walking on university roads and wearing a black shirt while smoking outside right?
- Germain E. Stemme

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 5:48pm):

I (heart) wiscmail. Although, I wish that DoIT would let me keep my wisc.edu address forever.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 6:09pm):

From what I can tell about ASU's service (without actually having access to it,) it looks like they are still greatly relying on their campus IT department (help desk, documentation, web hosting, account creation/linking, etc.) So, adding Gmail to the student IT offerings is probably just making things more complex and *more expensive* for their IT department to maintain.

Heh, check this out. The asu.edu DNS MX record points at asmtp.asu.edu. So they still have to maintain an email system anyway. Go figure.

Lesson 1: Nothing is free. It's all about shifting costs.

Lesson 2: Don't believe the rosy picture large corporations try to paint for you!

Erik (March 13, 2007 @ 7:35pm):

Let's not be spreading Google hate now and get your facts straight.

1) Yes, Google scans your emails for keywords to deliver targeted advertisements. How do you think the WiscMail spam filter works? They scan emails for keywords to pull out emails with words like "Viagra" and "Prescription Drugs".

2) Yes, Google hands over emails to the government in the event of a "search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court order". Have you read the MyUW privacy policy? So do they.
"UW-Madison respects the legitimate privacy interests of My UW Madison Users within appropriate limits for educational, ethical and legal reasons."

3) Wiscmail doesn't use "AJAX" technologies, learn what it is.

4) I could delete all your emails in Wiscmail if I obtained your password just as easily as in Gmail. Gmail is secure on its own without end user error. Read their white paper and FAQ at http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=60762&topic=9193
They have a larger grid of redundancy than DoIT could ever dream of.

5) Read Google's reasons on why they are censoring in China:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/testimony-internet-in-china.html
Is censored searches worse than no web searching at all?

6) Backups are always a good thing to do no matter what email system you use. Download all your email from Gmail/WiscMail via pop3 once and a while.

---

You can forward all your emails to gmail at
https://www.mynetid.wisc.edu/modify

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 10:36pm):

I'm not the person who posted the original AJAX comment, but yes, WiscMail's web client does use AJAX. AJAX is a technology that uses a asynchronous JavaScript callbacks to update a server without refreshing the client. WiscMail's web client has been doing that for years, long before the term AJAX was coined.

The article referred to AJAX as if it were a feature, but it's not a specific feature. Gmail offers a number of features that use AJAX technologies (auto-complete of your address book, for example), but WiscMail's web client does as well (for example, your address book entries are posted back to the server without refreshing the page).

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 10:41pm):

In response to Erik's post, point #4. Read the article fully, this is not about account access. Gmail actually lost mail due to multiple failures in their redundant storage system.

Anonymous (March 13, 2007 @ 11:08pm):

"Gmail doesn't offer IMAP access. A web client is convenient at times, but too cumbersome for every day use IMO."

Really? I use gmail with Thunderbird on my computer, and online client elsewhere... that combination works just fine for every day use. It'll download your emails from both gmail and wisc, and not have to worry about backup storage (you can also back these up to CD/DVD).

Anonymous (March 14, 2007 @ 7:01am):

"I use gmail with Thunderbird on my computer, and online client elsewhere... that combination works just fine for every day use."

That's POP, not IMAP.

http://google.logenv.org/

Anonymous (March 14, 2007 @ 4:36pm):

The bigger problem is that for all the talk about the wired generation most students are computer illiterate. I have my wisc mail forward to gmail which goes to Thunderbird. The point is that requires some degree of computer know how. I think we need to make sure the user is as up to date as the software before we upgrade.

Anonymous (March 15, 2007 @ 1:18pm):

"I have my wisc mail forward to gmail which goes to Thunderbird."

I understand why people might forward their mail to Gmail because of their slick web interface, but I don't understand why you are doing that. Gmail only offers POP access. Wiscmail offers both POP and IMAP. Plus DoIT provides more documentation - http://kb.wisc.edu/wiscmail/search.php?q=thunderbird - and support. Also, you don't have the delay and risk of losing email in the process of forwarding your mail.

Anonymous (March 15, 2007 @ 4:16pm):

As far as I'm concerned, the more we can have UW journalism students telling IT professionals with decades of experience how to handle things the better.

What could possibly go wrong?

Anonymous (March 15, 2007 @ 7:39pm):

As a DoIT employee and student, I've been stymied by the low space allotment as well. They give employees Wiscmail Plus accounts, which are 1 gigabyte of space. Hardly anyone uses it though.

As for the 4 TB server that the platform has in the basement, well - realize that, as people have mentioned, that's a very secure 4 TB. It's been mirrored at least once that I know of, and that's not even my department.

And conclusion: IMAP = God. POP = the '90s.

Anonymous (March 16, 2007 @ 1:20pm):

I love how cut-and-dry everyone thinks it is. There are still about 40 independent mail systems on campus today. DoIT is trying to provide a centralized service to reduce costs across the board. Other departments on campus are resisting and retaining professional services, from area consulting firms using their departmental budgets in many cases, to support those services. Talk about waste...

Also, these types of offerings for massive infrastructure (what Google is offering) have only become available in the last couple years. As unbelievable as it sounds, there are a couple steps between Google offering the service and a Big Ten University handing over the dealings of its mail infrastructure to that private company. I can assure you the people at DoIT understand the simple math that goes into calculating total cost of ownership.

Anonymous (March 16, 2007 @ 5:38pm):

I would bet that is DoIT is already investigating moving Wiscmail to Gmail. The benefits and risks raised in this editorial and subsequent comments would be considered in such an investigation.

Did the Badger Herald think to actually ask DoIT? The investigative part of journalism is fun. Try it!

Anonymous (March 28, 2007 @ 12:02pm):

An interesting article explaining the reliability of Gmail

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130187/article.html

Anonymous (December 13, 2007 @ 1:56pm):

Seems to make sense to outsource student email if FREE and more storage and capabilities than currently offered:
see articel of Dec 3 at:
http://wistechnology.com/article.php?id=4362

"Outsourced e-mail: Are UW, tech schools missing a chance to save taxpayer dollars?"

Anonymous (September 19, 2008 @ 6:31pm):

The authors of the article are woefully inexperienced to be spewing this opinion. I am a departmental IT professional (ie, not part of DoIT). There are a lot of things DoIT could do better. What they provide though is near top notch and EXTREMELY reliable. The comparison between DoIT's SAN (storage area network) and the herald's fileserver shows unbelievable naivete. The misconceptions about asynchrous java underline the reason why paid professionals are handling campus IT decisions and not know-it-all students. Sheesh.

Add a comment

We welcome your thoughts, but please keep your feedback thoughtful, on-topic and respectful. Offensive language, personal attacks, or irrelevant comments may be deleted.

Login...



   Remember me


Not registered? Sign up now.

It's quick, free, and the email address you provide will not be sold or solicited.

...or Post Your Comment Anonymously

Anonymous

Place a shout-out!
Top Classified Ads (view all)

Place your classified ad online and have it show up here. Your ad will hit thousands of viewers a day!

DON'T READ ME! Too late. If you're reading this, guess how many other people are reading it. See... advertising in The Badger Herald does work!

Place a classified ad

Advertising