Google has this week indicated that they will be offering Gmail users POP access to their Gmail accounts.  What this means is that Gmail users will be able to download their email from the Gmail server on to their local computer, and using their email client of choice, such as Outlook or Eudora.

Of course, doing this negates some of the features which make Gmail so interesting:  the ability to use the Google search engine to search your email, the 1meg of storage, and, perhaps most importantly for our purposes, the ability to report spam with the click of a button. 

Moreover, how does this affect their spam reporting algorithms, and their ability to subsequently take action against those who spam the Gmail network?  One of the great advantages of having thousands, if not millions, of users all reporting the same spam to the same place is, as AOL and Cloudmark have demonstrated, that suddenly "I'll know it when I see it" becomes a whole lot more valid.  But with users downloading their email, instead of reading it on the server, suddenly spammers will find the spam they send to Gmail being downloaded, instead of reported.  The potential for them to get their spam in front of the eyes of Gmail users may well leap exponentially.

It will be interesting to see if the spam load in user's inboxes increases as people start POPing their Gmail.  And it bears watching.