On 8/18/05, Jie Li wrote:

On 8/18/05, mlist@safenet-inc.com wrote:

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Jie Li gasped:

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check this out: https://mail.google.com/mail/help/program_policies.html

# Modify, adapt, translate, or reverse engineer any portion of the Gmail Service # Remove any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices contained in or on the Gmail Service # Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of the Gmail Service

Dear god, it seems that this custumizegoogle extension is not allowed by the google program policies,

Hee hee hee!

Don't panic. :-)

You aren't doing any of the forbidden things. The "service" stops before your computer. They might have a problem if you were forwarding their stuff to other users, stripped of their copyright and trademark.

For your purposes, you are receiving everything that they send to your mailbox. Your program is only showing it to you modified for your comfort. If it was illegal to mask parts of a message, it would have to be illegal to modify it for accessibility by the visually impaired, etc.

Just read this: # Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of the Gmail Service At least, this extension changed the web pages so that you can not see the ads. But I don't think google is going to do something with this extension, because I can imagine what what kind of impression it will bring to "free ware" community, guys for firefox and mozilla. As long as not all the people use this extension, which is always true, google will ignore it. It will be a problem if 100% of all the Gmail and google users start to use this extension, google will do something, but first, I don't think google will delete these users, second, firefox occupies a small portion of the web brower market (< 5% I think). Most people use IE instaid, and they are some how "protecting" us, because we look like terros hiding in a big crowd of normal people. The best way to handle us is to ignore us.

:-) it's great to be different! I have the reply from the auther of this extension:

Yes. You probably violate some of the Google terms if you use CustomizeGoogle, depending on which settings you use. However, in the default CustomizeGoogle settings for GMail you don't violate any terms. If you choose to remove ads, then you might be violating some terms. However, it's not possible (that I know of) for Google to find out what you're doing. The Google Toolbar (released by Google) also modifies pages (Autolink). If they are doing it, it must be ok for everyone else to do it. I don't think that the CustomizeGoogle extension is violating any terms by itself. Daniel

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At worst, you are refusing to send requests (for them to deliver ads to a spot in your mail-reader window). So what?

Resume blocking.

Kevin

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On Thursday, August 18, 2005 @ 5:03 PM, I wrote:

On Thursday, August 18, 2005 @ 6:07 AM, Jie Li wrote:

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On 8/18/05, mlist@safenet-inc.com wrote:

...

Jie Li gasped:

...

check this out: https://mail.google.com/mail/help/program_policies.html

# Modify, adapt, translate, or reverse engineer any portion of the Gmail Service # Remove any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices contained in or on the Gmail Service # Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of

On 8/18/05, Jie Li wrote: the

...

...

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Gmail Service

Dear god, it seems that this custumizegoogle extension is not allowed by the google program policies,

Hee hee hee!

Don't panic. :-)

You aren't doing any of the forbidden things. The "service" stops before your computer. They might have a problem if you were forwarding their stuff to other users, stripped of their copyright and trademark.

For your purposes, you are receiving everything that they send to your mailbox. Your program is only showing it to you modified for your comfort. If it was illegal to mask parts of a message, it would have to be illegal to modify it for accessibility by the visually impaired, etc.

Just read this: # Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of the Gmail Service At least, this extension changed the web pages so that you can not see the ads. But I don't think google is going to do something with this extension, because I can imagine what what kind of impression it will bring to "free ware" community, guys for firefox and mozilla. As long as not all the people use this extension, which is always true, google will ignore it. It will be a problem if 100% of all the Gmail and google users start to use this extension, google will do something, but first, I don't think google will delete these users, second, firefox occupies a small portion of the web brower market (< 5% I think). Most people use IE instaid, and they are some how "protecting" us, because we look like terros hiding in a big crowd of normal people. The best way to handle us is to ignore us.

:-) it's great to be different! I have the reply from the auther of this extension:

...

Yes. You probably violate some of the Google terms if you use CustomizeGoogle, depending on which settings you use. However, in the default CustomizeGoogle settings for GMail you don't violate any terms.

...

If you choose to remove ads, then you might be violating some terms. However, it's not possible (that I know of) for Google to find out what you're doing.

...

The Google Toolbar (released by Google) also modifies pages (Autolink). If they are doing it, it must be ok for everyone else to do it.

...

I don't think that the CustomizeGoogle extension is violating any terms by itself.

...

Daniel

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...

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At worst, you are refusing to send requests (for them to deliver ads to a spot in your mail-reader window). So what?

Resume blocking.

Kevin

I can't see that simply modifying web pages so that they display differently on your own computer can be violating any law. Unless CustomizeGoogle (which I use) was somehow bypassing security to hack into sites that you could not otherwise access, I don't think it can be illegal to use it. Now if it was somehow allowing you to go to those sponsored links in a way that bypassed the ability for Google to track that, that might be a misuse of their site, but I don't think it's doing that.

Greg Wallace

Hmm. I just looked closer at this tool. The option "Rewrite links to point straight to images" sounds like it might be problematic in that it might be bypassing the Google counters. Looks like some of this tool might not be too kosher legally after all. I guess I need to be more aware of what I'm using! Greg Wallace