Most Read
Most Commented
Read more like this
mk-logo
News
A toll on our information super-highway
Published:  Apr 27, 2011 8:37 AM
Updated: 1:27 AM

your say 'In Malaysia, we have tolls on land, in the sky and on the Internet. Now they are charging 50 sen per e-mail. What is the point when I have Gmail?'

Tricubes to charge 50 sen per email, confirms CEO

Paola: Why must the government pay 50 sen to Tricubes to send emails to Malaysians when it is paying nothing to send emails to them now?

A USB biometric device? Needless to say, Tricubes will monopolise its supply. How devilishly convenient to make money at other people's expense. This email nonsense must stop or it will be the undoing of the BN government.

Do remember that more than half of the 28 million Malaysians who live in the rural areas do not have Internet access. The priority is to get Internet access to all of them before giving them an email account.

Please also note that many government departments do not communicate with the people they serve by email. A case in point is the IRB (Inland Revenue Board). I've been e-filing for many years now and although it has my Gmail address, it has never once contacted me through email. They send me letters and cheques through Pos Malaysia.

Tailek: So I guess we can see yet another lie from the PM when he said this is a private project and will cost the government nothing. Maybe the PM thinks government agencies do not come under the definition of government.

Pemerhati: Quote: "Tricubes Bhd has confirmed that it will charge government agencies about 50 sen for every email sent to Malaysians who are account-holders... Tricubes chief executive Khairun Zainal Mokhtar stressed that users of the email will not be charged."

I hope Khairun realises that it is the taxpayers' money with which the government and its agencies are run and it is the taxpayers' money that will be used to pay Tricubes.

Now if the government agencies spend millions sending e-mails at the ridiculous rate of 50 sen per email, they would be wasting millions of the taxpayers' money. This is because the government agencies can instead easily send the emails using the existing well-known free email services and save millions and these millions can then be put to much better use.

This is definitely another BN project to siphon off the people's money into the pockets of the relatives and cronies of the BN leaders. Dr Mahathir Mohamad started this in a big way, Najib Razak continues the tradition.

Rakyat Malaysia: In Malaysia, we have tolls on land, in the sky and on the Internet. Now they are charging 50 sen per e-mail. What is the point when I have Gmail?

How secure can our Malaysian e-mail server be when the government allegedly hired hackers to attack Malaysiakini and Sarawak Report websites? I don't trust Tricubes or anything that is from the BN government anymore.

Better to be safe than sorry. Who knows, they will start tracking users and using it to send people to Kamunting under the ISA.

Kenyalang: The truth is there is no way any government department can stop printing hard-copy documents. They will need to send critical documents through snail mail because a lot of users still do not have access to Internet nor emails. So hard-copy receipts or documents will still be here until every Malaysian are connected.

Freemsia: So Tricubes will be charging government agencies about 50 sen for each email sent to Malaysians. Wouldn't it make more sense if the government agencies just get Malaysians to provide their totally free emails (Yahoomail, Hotmail, etc) to them, so that they can send information to Malaysians totally free without having to even spend that 50 sen?

From the looks of it, it is pretty obvious that this 1Malaysia email is basically to use taxpayers money to bail out Tricube.

Baiyuensheng: So the rakyat is again being forced to use the email and pay the fees. Next thing you know, EPF will go paperless and force the rakyat to use Tricubes email system if they want their statement. This is a fishy and smelly scam in the making.

Anonymous_3da6: Let's do a bit of maths here. If Tricubes manages to get 900,000 users per month, then Tricubes will have about 11 million per year.

If one user has four accounts (EPF, TNB, LHDN and TM) then Tricubes will send 44 million statements per year. At 50 sen per email, Tricubes will earn RM22 million. This is a low estimate.

So rakyat, please wake up and see that Tricubes will be laughing their way to the bank at our expenses. For me, I can do it at 10 sen on such volumes. Tricubes needs only 5.2 million to start up but earned four times their borrowing. This is a rip-off.

Kgen: This is a true Malaysian rent-seeker in action. There are plenty of free email providers out there who charge nothing to deliver email. Why do we need an unnecessary third party to charge taxpayers 50 cents per email?

GI Joe: Kgen, you are right. I think they will link it to LHDN. Every month after the PCB deduction, they will email to us a receipt and Tricubes makes its 50 sen per person per month. This what we call PRO at work (professional rip-off).

Xiao Zhu: "To sign up for the email, the user would have to go to any National Registration Department office. Users can also do it by themselves with a USB-biometric device, which they will have to purchase."

This is the greatest joke of the year. Only an idiot will do the above unless it's mandatory. Be prepared, another CEO will do another magic show to impose a charge of more than 50 sen for a hard-copy of all billings.

Chipmunk: Who is deceiving who here? Is PM Najib telling the truth or Tricubes CEO Khairun Zainal Mokhtar covering up the actual account on where the RM27 million is going to go? Why the need for such an email when every Malaysian has their own email account?

Beware, this is another scam for the BN to keep track on all the rakyat's communication (in other words, it's called "spying").

Mangodurian: How come no one asked:

1. "I don't want another email account. Can you forward all emails instead to my [email protected] account?"

2. "Will the government not entertain sending official correspondence to [email protected]?"

3. "So what technical reasons are there to need this email account?"

4. "Can I sue Tricubes if the government send propaganda spam as this email account and contents coming to it is supposed to be politically neutral?"

5. "Can I use the account to conduct my Nigerian scam business?"

 


The above is a selection of comments posted by Malaysiakini subscribers. Only paying subscribers can post comments. Over the past one year, Malaysiakinians have posted over 100,000 comments. Join the Malaysiakini community and help set the news agenda. Subscribe now .

ADS