Originally Posted By: kevs
Thanks Joe, by doing a G mail account in Apple Mail, would that identify you somehow to Google?

Well it would most certainly identify your userid and password. How else could you access your GMail account?

Remember this when dealing with Google, they are a very wealthy company that provides valuable services to users by selling the data they collect to marketers and by selling priority placement of search results to those same marketers. Google's bread and butter is knowledge of who you are, where you are, and where you are browsing. It is not unreasonable for them to consider your desire to hide that information from them when you use their search engine as theft of services. (Who knows they might even get that to stand up in court the way things are going today.)

Originally Posted By: kevs
There is no way now to open a Google account without the phone verification correct?

You would have to ask Google about that. My Google account is over 15 years old and that was not a requirement when it was created.

If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein