TheStreet.com has a story about a glitch in the free Gmail service being offered by Google (I found this via Digg).

Apparently, because of the glitch, some 60 people lost almost all of their email permanently. TechCrunch is saying that the glitch was caused by Firefox 2.0, and has been solved when users upgrade to Firefox version 2.01 (so if you haven’t upgraded, you should do so as soon as possible).

While I certainly feel for the people who lost their email (I admit, losing all of your email is a major inconvenience), this is certainly not a security incident that is isolated to just Gmail, Google or Firefox.

The really interesting part of this story though, is on the second page of the article, where Adrian Sannier, the head of technology at Arizona State University (which recently decided to adopt Gmail as their email service in a partnership with Google), points out that despite the security breach, he only ever had a team of 30 people to deal with security at the university, whereas “Google has an army.”

I pointed out in my November Google/Firefox/OpenOffice tips how most organizations could effectively now rely on these freely-available tools. What Adrian Sannier points out is quite a valid extension of my argument: it’s not that most organizations are better served by having Google take care of their email security for them, it’s just that it’s in Google’s best interest to protect the privacy interests of their users.

At an organization like a university or a library, where money is always tight, it just simply makes more financial sense to spend that money elsewhere. If you’re interested in getting more information on ASU’s Gmail partnership, you can check out the Gmail FAQ over at the university site.