Editorial: Let's lose WebMail

Adopting a third-party email service offers significant benefits. Switching to these services would free up funds for other uses because Google Apps for Education is offered at no cost. Moreover, these services offer a better end-user experience than WebMail. Princeton WebMail is slow, and the interface is difficult to navigate. While many students use desktop clients such as Apple Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird to manage their emails, an improved interface would benefit the students and professors who continue to rely directly on the Internet application. Moreover, both services offer a number of extras currently unavailable to students, such as calendar integration and document-editing capabilities.

The extra capacity of these email clients provides additional advantages to students and faculty. The one gigabyte that OIT allocates for email is hardly enough for those who wish to store old messages; both potential replacements would offer considerably more space. Additionally, these services are managed by major corporations with large maintenance staffs and a financial incentive to avoid downtime. Therefore, technical disruptions are less likely if the University switches to a third-party service.

Other universities have already made the switch. In September, Yale began transitioning students to Google Apps for Education, and Google advertises that 61 of the top 100 schools currently use its service. Other universities, such as the University of Nebraska and Tulane University, have implemented Microsoft Office 365.

Despite these benefits, there are some concerns that must be addressed before any transition. First, though controversial, the University must maintain access to student email. As former USG President Michael Yaroshefsky ’12 told the ‘Prince’ on Monday, if a professor believes that a paper was submitted late, the University needs to be able to check email records to adjudicate that dispute. Similarly, the University may require email access for use in Committee on Discipline and Honor Committee hearings.

Some have voiced privacy and security concerns regarding a switch. Many of these concerns are unfounded. Unlike standard Gmail, Google Apps for Education does not display advertisements. Additionally, the Editorial Board believes that emails will be more secure after a switch than they are in the status quo. Both Microsoft and Google have far more expertise, experience and resources to devote to securing their services than does OIT.

The Editorial Board applauds OIT for taking this first step toward adopting a new email service. After the pilot program ends, we encourage the University to act quickly to implement a more powerful and cost-effective email solution.