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Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

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Re: Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

#171

Post by DINKDINK »

simplicio wrote: post #14

Seems annoying. No one would rely on this to keep actual sensitive info private, since you can just screen shot it. On the other hand, part of the point of Gmail is that it makes your emails easily searchable, so you can quickly dig up info from old mail rather than have to make a note of said info in some sepearate program/notebook/whatever. But if emails are going to randomly be disappearing, it could really crippl…

>since you can just screen shot it.

The benefit with automated rention policies embeded in content is that it's less easy for the information to be weaponized ex post. I.e. Now that a couple has broken up, a vindictive partner doesn't have a full log of their communications that they can use to blackmail their partner. Basically it tips the balance back towards conversation and less dystopian log by making people who are attempting to log everything incur a cost rather than have them freeride on the logging system.

Re: Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

#172

Post by Akujin »

matte_black wrote: post #168
Widdershin wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's to stop you from removing the event listeners disabling copy and paste through the console/dev tools?

You could use that CSS rendered font someone made a while ago to make it into an uncopyable text.

Screenshot to an OCR reader defeats that really quickly.

Re: Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

#173

Post by boombip »

matte_black wrote: post #168
Widdershin wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's to stop you from removing the event listeners disabling copy and paste through the console/dev tools?

You could use that CSS rendered font someone made a while ago to make it into an uncopyable text.

This whole argument about copying is rather silly, at some point the text must be transmitted in a human readable form. At which point it can be recorded either electronically, or in the most difficult case by writing down manually what must be copied. Everything else is a question of degrees.

Re: Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

#174

Post by euyyn »

benrbray wrote: post #165
euyyn wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works fine for some definition of "fine".

What's wrong with it?

That come to mind:

Hard to separate pending tasks from just conversations.

Hard to split conversations into separate threads when two topics diverge.

Leaving a conversation isn't just your decision: you have to both reply all and hope that no one else replies all using a previous email in the thread.

In a corporate email, inability to prevent mass emails from other employees. Hard to do for personal email too.

EDIT: I'm a huge fan, e.g., of the "travel bundles" Inbox creates. It's a giant win in usability for the use case of getting confirmation emails of booked trips. But you can see how it's a battle uphill that Inbox fights against the protocol, as the AI isn't always able to bundle all relevant information together, or extract key pieces of info from the email bodies.

Re: Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

#175

Post by matlk »

"In the compose screen, there’s a tiny lock icon called “confidential mode”. It says that the recipient won’t be able to forward email content, copy and paste, download or print the email."

I can see how they could prevent this happening for the average user, but do they really have some way actually stop this?

Re: Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

#176

Post by on_and_off »

matlk wrote: post #175

"In the compose screen, there’s a tiny lock icon called “confidential mode”. It says that the recipient won’t be able to forward email content, copy and paste, download or print the email." I can see how they could prevent this happening for the average user, but do they really have some way actually stop this?

I mean .. nothing stops you from taking a picture of your screen

The way I see it, it could be useful for internal emails you don't want inadvertently shared with the outside.

Re: Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

#178

Post by bittercynic »

augustz wrote: post #100

What I'm struck by is how many people don't see value in this. If you work with sensitive data, this is valuable. A business may already trust google, but they want to send emails (even internally) that expire. I'd like it if it just expired the attachments - that's normally where sensitive data lives. I don't even need to prevent printing etc. I'd also love a setting, email over 1 year old, you have to jump through…

Though there is undoubtedly value in such a feature, it is upsetting because it further concentrates power. Presumably Google, and likely powerful people in organizations that use gmail, will still have access to the expired documents, but low level employees will not. The information asymmetry leads to real power asymmetry.

Re: Google is testing expiring emails in the new Gmail

#179

Post by tspike »

twhb wrote: post #155

Gmail intentionally deviates from the IMAP spec, forcing email clients to either become Gmail clients or work poorly with Gmail. They refuse to support IMAP push, instead saving push for the Gmail API. Recently they introduced AMP for Email, which happens to work via emails that only Gmail can read. Now they introduce another feature which happens to work via emails that only Gmail can read. I think it's pretty clear…

I'd long ago deleted my Facebook account, but the #deletefacebook push did strengthen my resolve enough to finally move my Gmail over to Fastmail. No regrets.
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