GMail Introduces New Privacy Settings – Remote Log Out, Logged In Stats & IP Address!
Here is an innovation from GMail that every single email user in the world is guaranteed to love! How many times have you wondered if you had signed out of your email after accessing it from a public computer? Have you ever been a victim of password theft? We all love the fact that Google allows its users to log in to its chat client Google Talk from multiple sources at the same time. So, how would you know whether your password got stolen if all the intruder does is read your emails and keep a virtual eye on you? You might feel that the fact an email is shown unread means that at least that conversation is safe. Did you know that you could mark an email as “unread” and you would never figure the difference? (Okay, I guess I am sounding like an imposter myself)
Google comes up with a brilliant idea of introducing a privacy setting in GMail that shows information about your last activity on your account and also whether you are logged onto the account on any other device. If you are the cynic type, you could also check out the details section and access more info like how many devices are you logged on from and also the IP addresses. What more, GMail also introduces a remote log out feature using which one can log oneself out of every device other than the one currently being used.
I shall definitely hail this feature since it’s an important step Google has taken towards protecting users’ privacy. The fact that GMail also lets the users know the IP address of the current device they are on, is the killer idea for me. This proves that Google had taken huge deliberations before coming up with the features. However, I am a little apprehensive about the section where GMail promises to report the time of last activity. If I am allowed to judge Google on the basis of Orkut’s recently launched “Last Logged in” feature, I am very disappointed because I always find the reported time to be when I logged into my current session. The whole idea behind the feature loses its meaning, in that case.
GMail, again, finds itself taking a huge lead in the war of web email applications and both Yahoo and Windows Live have a lesson to learn. Unfortunately, this feature roll out is still in the process and just might take a while to appear on your inbox.
Lastly, here’s a screen shot plagiarized from the Official GMail Blog -
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