How do they give out "invitations" if they don't email anyone ?
When you log into your gmail account, there is a small box somewhere
on the page that says something like "invite a friend to gmail". You
put your invitee's email address in that box, gmail produces an
invitation code and sends your invitee one email (I've tested this -
they really do only send *one* email) with the code. Your invitee
then goes to the gmail site and uses the code to sign up for their
own gmail account. If they sign up, you get one email in your own
gmail inbox to tell you they've accepted the invitation.
Now that's not quite the same as "don't email anyone", but one email
to you and one to your invitee hardly constitutes spam either. If
they were sending repeated emails to either of you, or if they were
selling the email addresses of invitees, that would be different -
but that does not appear to be happening.
Each gmail account has a specific number of invitations available,
but it does seem that the more people you invite, the more
invitations are made available to you, so it's not really limited.
FYI, I am not a gmail employee, do not receive any commission or any
other gain from promoting gmail. (In fact I don't think I do promote
them - I only send invitatations to those who've specifically asked
me for one, and occasionally suggest that someone use gmail if they
would find a free email account useful.)
Does that answer all of your questions sufficiently?
