I received my first Gmail spam today.

Why do I think it's spam? Because I don't know anyone on the recipients list, my address isn't on the recipients list -- even though a very similar address is -- and the content is typical of the "funny joke" spams that I have seen over the last decade.

I know each of the very small circle of people who have my Gmail address. I can count them on one hand. All of them are very aware of how to avoid spam, both coming and going.
 
The message appears to be a mass e-mail message from India designed to solicit responses so that live addresses can be harvested. The cardinal rule of spam is never to respond, even if the message claims the sender will remove your address upon request. All that will do is make your address more valuable to spammers as a confirmed live account, resulting in more spam sent to your address, not less.

The message purports to be from one Dr. Karthik and seems to be a forwarded message originally sent by someone named Nayan in HP India's customer support call centre in Bangalore.

The notable thing about the message is that it is sent from a Gmail address. I've reported it as spam and I am curious about the measures that Google takes against its account holders who send spam.
 
A second possiblity is that my address was intercepted by a hostile or compromised relay when I sent a message from my Gmail account, or when someone replied.

The third possibility that immediately comes to mind is that the message was misdelivered since the Delivered-To: header indicates an e-mail address that has a one-character difference from my own. If that is the case then it is a serious privacy problem for Google.

Set aside the argument that Gmail is a free service in beta trials and you get what you pay for. Frankly, Gmail has been more reliable and useful than my personal e-mail and ISP service, which I pay a premium for.

If Google cannot deliver e-mail to the correct address -- or if it misdelivers messages to the wrong address -- then all kinds of personal information could be exposed to unintended recipients, with just as many unintended consequences.

The best rule to follow when it comes to e-mail is this: if you wouldn't want to see it on a postcard -- where anyone could read it -- don't send it by e-mail.