Like yourself, I have a great deal of concern regarding loss of my decades old email addresses, of which I have 10 with Shaw. Besides my personal connections to family and friends, there are hundreds of things linked to my email addresses, some of which I likely don't even recall, which are there for emergency or rare use. Then there are my medical, banking, investment, subscriptions, retail newsletters and ads, and articles written by others who I gave permission to use my public exposed contacts.
I have been lobbying in this regard for months now, with Shaw, Rogers and even Minister Champagne, who made the final decision. To date, my emails in that regard have not been responded to. The powers that be seem to have forgotten much of the issues of Shaw's broadband clients.
I want to clarify some issues which have been muddied in part by a local radio tech show, when it comes to what Telus has done in regard to Google. Before that move, both Telus and Shaw used the same email handing company, Zimbra, out of New Jersey USA. After Zimbra lost about a weeks worth of Telus email they were unable to recover, Telus went looking for an alternative solution, but one which would minimize the inconvenience to their email users, many of which used the @telus.net or @telusplanet.net email domains. They wanted those emails already registered and in use to remain the same. While it is true that Telus engaged Google to supply their email services, they are NOT gmail. Unlike gmail, which is a free service, Telus pays for the use of the Google servers to store and coordinate the email distribution. This is part of the Google Enterprise services, the same one used by corporations, where they can set up their own corporate domain, such that no one even need know that Google is involved. Now, here's where the rumour mill got it very wrong. Unlike gmail, which indeed Google filters and looks for keywords for advertising, Google Enterprise mail is securely protected from prying eyes. There are companies which use Google Enterprise mail service to move very secretive company emails, with all sorts of private, personal and business sensitive information. Further, in the case with Telus, they maintained control of the privacy requirements that people agreed to when they first acquired a @telus email account.
Admittedly, the transfer process didn't go as smoothly as anyone wanted, and some emails went astray, some emails ended up in wrong email boxes, and it took months to complete the transfer, however, for the vast majority of people, it just went, and the outside world was none the wiser that Telus has moved their email service to Google from Zimbra. I have suggested to the powers that be at both companies and the federal government that they could have the same done with @shaw emails. As it is, Shaw is currently paying Zimbra for these services, so the costs to move to Google Enterprise would end up a Rogers cost on a permanent basis, but with a $26 BILLION dollar buy out, I'm guessing they can afford it, to keep us from becoming very miffed.
I would ask each of you to petition Shaw and Rogers (and Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation the Hon. Francois Phillipe Champagne) to let them know that this issue is very important to us. email is: francois-phillipe.champagne@parl.ca All is not lost... yet.
Proud-boomer
