BT bans Google - a follow-up; your help needed

I’ve had quite a few emails this evening expressing disbelief about this blog I posted earlier ("Does BT have any clue whatsoever about Google?").  I wrote that a senior chap in BT told me words to the effect of:

"Google Mail is a banned
service at BT"

(Ergo they he’d never managed to get a look at the services they were offering or use them in much depth — I was interested in his viewpoint on whether — if at all — they were concerned with the rise of Google, the network-as-an operating system, et al.)

I’m still in disbelief myself, but seriously — from what I’m told, they don’t allow their staff to use Gmail, let alone experiment with it.  I assume that they’re allowed to use the search engine portion of the service though! 

I might pluck up the courage to phone BT’s PR department and check if this company policy.

Tomorrow I’m going to find out if this head-in-the-sand policy is used at any other UK telecommunications companies.  You know what, I’m willing to bet that Yahoo employees have full access to everything Google is throwing the market.  I’m willing to bet that the same is the case for Microsoft employees.  Surely?   Am I just totally missing something?

Help me out:  Do you know anyone who works for: Vodafone, T-Mobile, o2, Yahoo, Orange, Cable & Wireless, or for that matter any similar telecoms or media company?  Ask if they can access Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo Mail and send me a note to ewan@smstextnews.com with the results?

I wonder what services are banned for Google employees?  That’s another phone call I’ll need to pluck up the courage to make.