Google bans Gmail sales

Search giant Google plans to stop people profiting from the sale of their e-mail addresses, reports BBC.

The company has modified the policy on its Gmail accounts, preventing the sale, trading, reselling or exploiting of Gmail accounts for commercial purposes. Until now, people have been creating Gmail accounts for the purpose of reselling them at a later stage, often on auction sites like eBay.

It is thought that some people are creating Gmail accounts for trademarks or company names in the hope of selling control of such addresses to the rightful owners.

It is not clear yet what other action Google will take to police Gmail accounts and whether it will confiscate or close accounts that flout the policy change.

Despite numerous countries banding together to prevent spam, the number of unsolicited e-mails has risen 42% in the last six months, to 500 000 unique spam outbreaks a day.

According to PCWorld, only 10% of spam complies with the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act, implemented in the US in January 2004.

While 49 countries have been identified as hosting Web sites referenced in spam e-mails, China is still the host for 73.5% of such sites, says anti-spam vendor Commtouch Software. America is the main propagator, with 56% of global spam originating in the US.

Spammers include those site links to provide more information regarding their products, or to allow users to buy the products online.

QinetiQ Metal Printing (QMP) has developed a new technique that replaces conventional copper etching by using special ink that attracts metals.

The new technology makes it possible to produce antennas for tiny mobiles or radio frequency identification (RFID) tags - used for tracking goods - more cheaply and efficiently. While RFID tags are widely tipped to replace conventional bar coding - experts predict they will be big business by 2006 - they are still too expensive to be viable on a large scale.

The metal printing technique could transform how RFID tags are made, says QMP GM Chris Bishop. "The very basic principle is that you apply an ink to a surface that is water resistant, like a flexible plastic.

"When you pass it through an 'electroless` chemical solution, metal will `grow`. It is not a special solution; it is an industry standard one."