Yahoo! will offer the 2GB service to subscribers of the SBC Yahoo! DSL and Dial services, and it will also be given to anyone signing up for the service.
Previously, Yahoo!'s free email capacity was only 4MB, while SBC subscribers received 25MB of storage. It is hoping that the new facility will fuel demand from consumers and businesses alike.
Google's free mail service Gmail, which is currently being beta tested and is available by invitation only, offers 1GB, promising that users will never have to delete emails again. The service is free, but ads appear on the sides of the pages, using Google's search service to link the ads to the content of emails. This has prompted some people to question the privacy of the service.
In another move heightening the competition between Yahoo! and Google, Google has bought a stake in the Chinese search engine . This follows the acquisition last year of Hong Kong-based search developer 3721 Network Software by Yahoo!.
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