[dkoston]

Google TOS is pretty broad. However, one of the main factors here is that export controls could quickly come into play. Since Google is US-based, providing this service for those in embargoed countries could get you shut down quickly.

They also have a "don't misuse our services" clause and I'm sure this would count as misuse if found.

[spdebbarma]

Someone who works for GMail or Google has already read this HN post. I don't expect it to work for much longer unless OP has found a loophole.

[imhoguy]

> providing this service for those in embargoed countries could get you shut down quickly.

How come Google can figure out who and where the interested end-user is when emails are actually send by web apps and clicking is done upon email retrieval (I bet some cron with POP3). Moreover emails from "bad" countries are rather filtered out as spam/scam.

Apart of this thread publicly inviting people it may be also hard to distingush the accout from any busy one. But I guess G may have some pattern matching and rate limits for such sinks.

[simonebrunozzi]

Let me answer this: from what I know, and broadly speaking, this service is both illegal and not allowed by ToS.

[jake_the_third]

> this service is both illegal

.. in your country. Saying something is illegal without mentioning jurisdiction is meaningless.

> not allowed by ToS

The service being signed up to, perhaps. But it isn't clear to me that it's banned by gmail's tos especially since he's using the service APIs normally.