LAWTECH GURU BLOG by Jeff Beard

Yahoo! Cranks Up E-Mail Storage

Not to be left completely behind by Google's 1GB GMail services, CNet News reports that Yahoo! is making good on its announcement to increase current members' e-mail storage up to 100MB today.

I received an e-mail in my Yahoo! account today that they expanded service as follows:

• Increased storage capacity – from your current level to 100MB
  
• Increase in total message size to 10MB
  
• A streamlined interface that's even easier to use

While I haven't tried Google's offering yet (their beta invitations are limited), I've been a Yahoo! Mail user for many years now. While other services like HotMail have been hacked many times and experienced other problems, I have to say that my Yahoo! experience has been exemplary (and for a free service, that's rare). As I was constantly bumping up again the old 6MB limit, the new space gives me some very welcome breathing room. It's nice to be in the green after living in their red zone for so long.

With their bulk mail (spam) filter, it's been a great free solution for giving out a throwaway e-mail address without contributing to my already flooded personal and business e-mail accounts hosted elsewhere.

So if you need a fairly generous free e-mail account to use to counter spam, send personal e-mail outside of your office system, and to access nearly anywhere, it's not a bad choice if you don't mind the Flash ads. And don't get me started on the privacy controversy with GMail. Who wants any service to scan your e-mail for profiling and/or targeting?