Gmail accounts for auction on eBay

I can't believe this, people are paying upwards of $150 for free gmail invites on eBay. Maybe I should have kept mine! People who are beta testing gmail were each given two invites to pass along, but some are turning up on eBay.

After seeing some of my posts about gmail (check the archive if you're curious) on this blog, a woman apparently decided that I was a bit of an expert on gmail and wrote me an email asking if the selling of accounts on eBay was legal/allowed. I thought it was an interesting question so I looked into it (very briefly as I have a final exam today). As it turns out, there is nothing in the Google gmail Terms of Use that forbid selling accounts, although they do reserve the right to cancel your account for any reason.

I told here that if she wanted to drop a wad of cold cash on an account she's in the clear, and that Google is probably loving the attention anyway so wouldn't try to stop it. Plus, it's been going on for several weeks and they have yet to send a C&D letter to eBay to have them remove the auctions. Strange times.

Please, just wait a bit because these accounts will be free to the public within 3-6 months.

Here are some articles about this.