Amidst the furor against the soon to be launched 1Malaysia Email project, a group of "tech savvy citizens tired of the MyEmail saga", have set up a website parodying the much criticised RM50 million project.

NONE "Welcome to the scandal-less citizen inbox" said the welcome message on the site tailored to look similar to the MyEmail portal .

The message further announced the availability of the free service to Malaysians and government agencies alike.

"Be first to experience paperless communication with government agencies in a secure and reliable way (it's called email!). This service is free of censorship, large-scale government oversight, and is provided free of charge to the public and government of Malaysia," stated the message.

Tricubes revealed today during a press conference in a luxury hotel in Kuala Lumpur, that the service will cost government departments RM0.50 an email sent.

NONE Its CEO Khairun Zainal Mokhtar ( left ) admitted that the IT firm is looking at the revenue stream from government departments as a way to lift it out of Bursa GN3 classification for "debt restructuring".

"Share the love, it's free" said a sentence on the site with links to an auto Twitter post and Facebook page for the parody service.

The site urged users to get their account now with no need of USB keys, fingerprints, to get their own myoh.my, plain simple, secure email.

This is in direct response to a disclosure by Khairun during the same press conference that users will need to visit the National Registration Department or buy a USB security device to authenticate their "secure" email account.

The parody email service also boasted the same services that MyEmail said it would provide.

  • One Inbox that works just like regular email and more. Get notices, news and replies from government agencies directly to your inbox. You never have to sign up for another email account ever! (Especially since you already have three.)
  • 25GB of storage you can store documents, photos, etc. online in the cloud and finding emails is easy with the built in search tool. Oh, and because your content is stored overseas we don't censor it or watch what you keep.
  • Create, edit and save documents, spreadsheets and presentations using your myOh.my id and familiar Google Docs interface. Access those documents anywhere by using your browser (no USB key required).
  • You don't need to learn anything new. Send, receive and save emails securely using myOh.my, just like you would with regular email.

 Google powered

And instead of being 'Powered By' Tricubes and Microsoft like the actual MyEmail, the parody site is powered by Google Apps, a freely available email service that allows email and storage of email addresses in a group database as well as other services.

The Malaysia Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit Mampu representative had told listeners during an interview on BFM radio recently that it would cost the government departments money to store email addresses on their own.

A disclaimer at the bottom of the page reads, "This service is not affiliated with myemail or the Government of Malaysia. This service is a mix of citizen empowerment and Internet satire".

The parody site also has a link to a contact form that mimics Tricubes contact from on the actual site, though it satirically added at the bottom, the phrase, "Actually, we're not that interested in hearing what you have to say".

The message conveying frustrations from many quarters that most government projects were implemented without heeding public responses while putting on a show of going through the motions of a referendum.

While a sign-up form is available on the site, attempts to sign up for the account only led to a Google form with no further effect.

However, the parties behind the parody, while wanting to remain anonymous, have indicated that they intend to provide full functionality to the site and its services soon, for free.