14 DAY TRIAL // Gmail was first released in April 2004 and was regarded as a revolutionary technology because it provided impressive features available only by invitation. Time passed by and Gmail grew up from 1GB of storage size to 2,8GB, the users received many more invitations and so on. At the beginning of the year, every registered member had the possibility to invite other 100 Internet consumers as the company offered no less than 100 invites to every user. So, almost anybody was able to get an account on Gmail, the mail technology powered by Google which indirectly turned from a private beta product into a public one.
However, it was reported that some of the users registered for the product trade the invitations and tried to make money using these Google goodies. This should be a silly attempt to earn money these days because the Mountain View company already upgraded Gmail and made it available for free for all the users. Moreover, the search giant infringes this action as it is mentioned in the product's Terms of Use.
"Google does not condone the auction, sale, or trade of Gmail invitations, and we do not encourage those interested in Gmail to purchase or exchange items for them," the Mountain View company states. "It is a violation of the Gmail Program Policies to sell or auction established Gmail accounts. When we are notified of such transactions, we investigate and take appropriate action if there is a violation of the Gmail Terms of Use."
The interesting fact is that Google upgraded Gmail in February 2007, making it available for free for all the users. However, the special page commenting on the invitation trading was updated on 6 July, 2007, which is after the upgrade moment. Anyway, the invites field is still there so, if you want to invite a friend to join Gmail, feel free to do it.