Neowin reports that Google have changed the Gmail Terms of Service to prohibit selling or trading invites.
It was only a matter of time…
It’s pretty obvious by now that the number of Gmail invites you get depends on how much you use it. I’ve had 14 or 15 invites to give out now — I’ve forgotten exactly how many — and I’ve only had the account a little over two weeks. I’ve got all my mailing lists running through it now, and I have it open in the background pretty much all day, so that equals some pretty intense usage. My Dave, on the other hand, isn’t using it much at all, and even though he was the first person I gave an invite to, he hasn’t recieved any to give out himself yet.
Another Gmail thing I’ve seen blogged recently is the use of yourname+anything@gmail.com as a way of adding labels automatically and potentially identifying spam sources. Unfortunately, after a few experiments, Ben figured out that if you have a dot in your gmail address, like I do (kay.smoljak), then that doesn’t work. I only really went with the dot cos Gmail itself suggested it! Hopefully that’s something they’ll figure out how to get around later. It is a beta, after all.