Gmail

Google built its empire on innovations that served consumers well, but it's building its future on serving those consumers, and their personal data, up to advertisers. Not only that, but Google's new focus has the company pursuing projects that may actually be harmful to users.

Summer's heating up, but apparently the stock market didn't get that memo. Still, there are plenty of places for burned investors to find respite. In this series, we highlight companies with the potential to warm up your portfolio's returns. Google (GOOG) is hot -- even if its stock is cold. In...

Google's shares have fallen 15% in the last three months while the S&P 500 has traded flat. This share price decline seems odd when contrasted with the spectacular success Google has been experiencing with its Android mobile OS. But there are good reasons Wall Street isn't impressed.

Google Inc. has settled Federal Trade Commission allegations of deceptive privacy practices by its Buzz social network, including actions that violated its own privacy policy. The proposed settlement requires Google to create a comprehensive privacy program, to be independently audited for the...

Facebook unveiled on Monday a messaging service designed to incorporate email, SMS, chat and messages under one system, a move that could potentially erode the markets of a host of other high-profile email providers from Google's Gmail to Yahoo's Yahoo mail. But Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg downplayed the potential affect on email providers, saying in a Webcast: "This is not an email killer. This is a messaging system that includes email."

Google plans to pay out an $8.5 million settlement as part of a privacy class action lawsuit against its Gmail Buzz feature, the Internet giant said Tuesday.

For the most part, e-newsletters are a great way to keep up to date with the organizations, products and sales that are of interest to you. But sometimes you end up subscribed to an e-newsletter that is simply spam and doesn't offer an easy way to opt out. Instead of letting those newsletter pile...

Google has announced an upgrade to its popular Gmail service called "Priority Inbox," which aims to learn which emails are most important to you, and surfaces those to the top of your email queue. As email arrives, you can mark it more or less important. Thus, over time Gmail will "learn" which emails are most important to you.

Earth to Skype: Forget those lofty IPO plans. If Cisco Systems or a telecom company comes knocking on your door with a multibillion dollar buyout offer, take the money and run, say institutional investors and Wall Street soothsayers.

You've got gigabytes worth of email, but how do you sort through it all? Google hopes to help with a new tool, called "Priority Inbox," that will highlight important messages in Gmail. At least now you'll have another excuse for ignoring those less-important emails.