Truckloads of ink and gigabytes of Internet space are being devoted these days to discussing the merits of Google, the Web's leading search engine.

Google is the best, but in any case, there's another secret to Google's success: honesty.

But Google is risking its reputation for honesty, and for putting the user first, with a new e-mail service it is currently developing, called Gmail.

To preserve clean image, Google should rethink Gmail

By WALTER S. MOSSBERG