Do you own your webmail or does your webmail own you?

Are you sure?

Obviously, I am far from alone in terms of increasing sensitivity to these issues of Online Identity and Content Management.

A careful and clueful Cairo blogger at "i am arto" offers this take on the Free Email Combo Dance: And Without Selling Your Freedom.

Some of Arto's justifiably hyperbolic (IMHO) criteria include:

1. Ratio between Overall Features Offered versus Imposed Benefit Gained by the email service provider.

2. Level of Freedom & Flexibility Offered versus Imposed Prisoning Restrictions by the email service provider.

3. Level of Lack of user Awareness acknowledged by the email service provider versus their False Apparent Pretense.

Arto sums up his recommendations as Gmail + Hushmail. Personally, I'd take that one step further and go with Inbox.com + Hushmail.