[PCWorld]

Post your comments for How Secure Is My E-mail? here

[rcprimak]

It's amazing how many people think that e-mail is encrypted, when in fact it is not, during transmission.

That aside, GMail does transmit details about the contents of your e-mail to third party advertisers, and no one knows who thes third-parties are. This is more than just a computer reading details and posting in-house ads.

That said, I'd trust Google with my e-mail long before I'd trust Yahoo, with whom I do have an active MailPlus Account.

[OneTrueFriend]

It is a good idea for everyone to get used to thinking of E-mail as the equivalent of sending an open postcard.
That is the best way to view it.

[luckydawg]

And never....I mean...NEVER hit the dreaded "reply all" button when you only want to reply to the original sender! This little button has broken up marriages, ended political careers, and destroyed families! I hated Outlook and Outlook Express so much that I switched to Pegasus. It works smoother and best of all....It's NOT a Bill Gates product! :-)

[jcastle]

All that said about the lack of security of e-mail it would be simple to encrypt e-mail like secure web pages with public key cryptography.

[LindaA]

OneTrueFriend makes an excellent point about thinking of e-mail as being the electronic equivalent of a postcard, because that's EXACTLY what it is, so whatever you do, don't EVER put any personally sensitive (credit/debit card numbers, Social Security number, etc.) into an e-mail.

That said, someone would have to have an awfully bad case on insomnia to want to read MY e-mail! {|-))

[OneTrueFriend]

Well done to LindaA for gently introducing a sense of humour into a serious topic.