California is attempting to legislate on Google's GMail... some of the legislation seems to be a good protection for the users... but as far as I can remember... it is voluntary and part of the terms of service... so, every user is agreeing. I have a GMail account and actually find that the 'ads' are very useful and, in some cases, something I need. For example... i was emailing someone about photo archiving etc. and these were some of the ads that were VERY small on the right margin of my page

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May 25, 2004 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Korean Internet portal ...
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These don't exactly fit into the same category as spam or spyware or pop-ups... quite intuitive Google, good show.