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Google's drunk e-mailing protection is nice, but won't save you
Oct 16, 2008 (Chicago Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) --
There's a flaw in Google's new program designed to keep you from e-mailing something you'll regret in the morning.
Yes, the new Gmail feature, Mail Goggles, requires the solving of five math problems in 60 seconds before sending a message. That should cut back on one ill-advised form of digital correspondence: drunk e-mailing.
Get the math problems wrong and Mail Goggles generates this admonition: "Water and bed for you."
But even if Google deems you too inebriated to correspond with your boss or your ex, what about all the other ways to communicate something stupid in the digital age?
For starters, Mail Goggles isn't available for Gmail on cell phones, so bar-hopping BlackBerry and iPhone users are on their own. There's no mention of whether the feature will be on the T-Mobile G1, the mobile phone with Google's software platform that will go on sale at the end of next week.
As one person in an online discussion group for Google Labs pointed out, "This needs to be considered, cuz really, when would someone do this? At the bar, from a phone!"
Other companies have tried to tackle drunk dialing in the last few years. In Australia, Virgin Mobile let customers block outgoing calls to certain numbers during late-night hours. LG introduced a cell phone in Korea with a built-in breathalyzer.
But there's still no technological catch-all solution for drunk dialing and texting, or other activities like consuming a gross burrito at 3 a.m. or standing outside that girl's house with a boom box in a foolhardy attempt to channel John Cusack in "Say Anything." So be careful and watch out for your drinking buddies. Remember, friends don't let friends send their exes e-mails like "OMG i miss u plz take me back."
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(c) 2008, Chicago Tribune.
Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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