Lycos Europe declared itself the victor in the race for
e-mail space race yesterday with the introduction of a 1Gbyte
service - although this one comes at a price.
Lycos Mail Personal 1GB is ad-free and comes with antispam and
antivirus software for £3.49 a month, as well as a domain name so
users can have an e-mail addresses such as
PedroSanchez@PedroSanchez.com.
The storage capacity of the offering appears to be response to
Google's announcement that it would be launching a free e-mail
service with 1Gbyte of storage.
last week Yahoo said it would begin offering a service later
this year with "virtually unlimited" storage that would rival
Gmail's limit, but users of Yahoo's souped-up storage offering have
to pay for it.
Both Lycos and Yahoo have said that money is not all that
matters - both providers have trumpeted the security and privacy
features of their services in an apparent jab at concerns raised
over Gmail.
Gmail is based on an advertising model whereby the company scans
e-mail messages and place ads that it deems relevant next to them.
Although Google has worked to address privacy concerns over the
scanning of messages, competitors seem not as eager to let these
concerns pass.
"Our product is quite different than Google's ... and we offer
no advertising, no spyware and very high privacy," said Alex
Kovach, vice president of Lycos Europe.
Kovach added that while there will always be free web-based
e-mail offerings, Lycos is serving up "e-mail for life" with
premium services boasting a range of features and an address that
never has to change.
Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg said Google's Gmail
still presents a powerful foe.
"Google is offering Gmail for free and, unless you are bothered
by the advertising, that's a deal no one else has matched,"
Gartenberg said, adding that he did not believe Gmail poses any
serious privacy concerns and doubts that its advertising model,
which is no more obtrusive than the ads on Google's search service,
will deter users.
"What is interesting is that providers are responding to a
service that hasn't even been launched yet," Gartenberg said.
While Gartenberg doubted that fee-based e-mail services with
extra storage will steal that much of Gmail's market thunder, some
users say they want what is available, now.
A web-based e-mail user in the UK said that she would have no
qualms about switching to Lycos and paying for the storage.
"It's not as much of a pain to switch e-mail addresses as
everyone says," she added.
Paul Day, a Yahoo mail user who lives in Madrid, said that he
would also have no problems switching to Lycos' 1Gbyte service
rather than waiting for Gmail or Yahoo's "virtually unlimited"
offering.
"One of the disadvantages of Yahoo is in sending and receiving
those larger files, and missing those important mails when the mail
box is packed full," Day said. "1G-byte mail space? I'd switch in a
second!"
Lycos is also upgrading the storage capacities for its existing
premium e-mail customers. The Lycos Mail Max service will be
doubled from 50Mbytes to 100Mbytes, while Lycos Mail Personal will
be bumped up to 1Gbyte.
Kovach would not say how many premium mail users Lycos has,
commenting that it was still "early days" since the company just
started rolling out the services in February.
The Lycos Europe network covers 14 countries including the UK,
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain.
Scarlet Pruitt writes for IDG News
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