Net aficionados grovel to test Google's e-mail

Google's controversial Gmail e-mail service, under invitation-only testing on the Internet, is the toughest ticket in town.

Netizens are offering trades of everything from tours of Barcelona and Tokyo to home-cooked spaghetti sauce in exchange for a very rare Gmail account invitation. Those lucky enough to already have an account are auctioning invitations for $100 to $150 on eBay.

Dallas Pool is offering a two-hour Segway rental from his shop in La Jolla, Calif., in exchange for an invitation. "My business gets 100 e-mails a day," says Pool. "Finding an e-mail from three months ago is a nightmare. I want Google's proven ability to search through them."

Gmail won't be available to the general public until late summer. It offers 1,000 megabytes of free storage, compared with industry leader Yahoo Mail's 4 megabytes.

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