Google unveils Gmail in cyber supremacy war

Online search engine leader Google plans a free e-mail service providing 250 to 500 times more storage space than market leaders Yahoo! and Microsoft in the battle for Web supremacy.

But there’s a catch to the new service – Google’s computers will scan e-mails to deliver targeted advertising.

Google’s service, called “Gmail”, will offer one gigabyte of storage space, roughly 500,000 pages of e-mail.

Gmail users will be able to receive up to 10 megabytes in a single e-mail - more than the free services of Yahoo and Microsoft’s Hotmail allow to be stored in an entire mailbox.

Gmail also will enable its users to type a keyword into a built-in search box to find information contained in their e-mailboxes within seconds.

“We think e-mail is one of those things that is not as useful and as well organised as it should be,” Google co-founder Larry Page said in Mountain View, California. “People have been asking us to do this for a long time.”

Officials at Yahoo and Microsoft’s Hotmail division declined to comment on Google’s announcement.

Yahoo and Microsoft recently announced plans to challenge Google’s dominance in Internet searches. Google’s technology is behind nearly four out of every five Web searches, and the privately held company has recently unveiled a series of improvements to protect its turf.