It's Time To Ditch IndiaTimes Email

When such superior email services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail are available; I’m surprised that some people are still using Indiatimes email. While the Indiatimes email user might have his/her own compelling reason to stick to it (user ID not available in other mail services / first email ID to be created / employed with ToI group :-) etc), there are some glaring security issues because of which you should discontinue using IndiaTimes email.

When the referring link in your blog’s sitemeter indicates that the hit has originated from an email ID (in case the permalink of your blog / blog post is circulated through email), and you decide to click on the referring link, it will normally throw up a login screen for the relevant email service. Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail ensure that even the User ID of the mail user is not displayed when you try to find out the referrer. In sharp contrast, if the referring link points to an Indiatimes email ID, then the user ID of the Indiatimes user is also mentioned in the referring link. In addition to this, the referring link leads you to the Inbox of the Indiatimes email user. This means that somebody could gain access to such an IndiaTimes email ID without knowing either the email ID or password. Some hit counter services (Sitemeter, Extremetracking and Bravenet to name a few) allow bloggers to give public access to their site statistics. In such a case, when a random reader who visits the site statistics notices that one of the referring link is from an Indiatimes email ID, then such a random reader can gain access to the referring Indiatimes email account.

I may not be technically competent to explain the above security glitch in a language, which is easily understandable to the average user. In case you or your friends use an Indiatimes email ID, please do not to click on any outgoing link directly from your email account (you may copy and paste the relevant link in your browser to avoid any security glitch). In the long term, you may switch to a service, which offers a higher degree of security.

Can knowledgeable readers also throw some light on how Rediffmail handles this? I'm more concerned because Rediffmail enjoys a higher degree of patronage.