Google: 1 TByte email a "bug"

Mountain View (CA) - After Yahoo and Lycos announced to extend their emails storage offerings, it seemed just logical that Google would extend its Gmail service to a new dimension : Users reported yesterday, that Google in fact had increased their inbox sizes by a factor 1000 - to 1 TByte. Anybody who had hoped to get a free 1000 gig email inbox take a step back - Google says "it was just a bug".

Google just announced April 1 to offer its Gmail service with one GByte of space, forcing other large email providers to rethink their storage offerings. With capacity the focal point of future web-based email-services, it was no surprise when reports appeared, that Google would up its idea to the next dimension. According an article a Cnet, some users found yesterday, that their Gmail inboxes had grown to 1 TByte.

Google was not reachable to comment on these reports immediately, but stated today that it would not offer a TByte sized email and keep the capacity at 1 GByte. "It was just a bug," said spokesman Nathan Tyler. "We are fixing it right now."

Google is still testing Gmail in a beta framework and provides access to the service to a limited amount of users. The announcement to provide 1 GByte space stirred and made providers such as Yahoo and Lycos respond with competitive plans : Yahoo will increase its free space to 100 MByte, Lycos Europe offers 1 Gigabyte for about $6.20 per month without banner ads. There is also a free 1 Gigabyte offering from the Mac-focused site Spymac .

According to a report at Marketwatch.com, Google is also working on "Puffin", a file and text search tool, which will be offered as a free download from Google’s website "soon".