Davey Winder
Wednesday, 09 July 2008 16:17
Your IT -
Home IT
Page 1 of 2
Ever wondered if someone is reading your Google Mail messages? Well now, courtesy of a new Google privacy tool (oh the irony) you can find out...
Here at iTWire we have, as you would expect, been following the
YouTube/Viacom affair with much interest. From reporting on the
court
ruling for Google to hand
over YouTube video viewing data to Viacom in the first place, through
to the apparent
decision not to appeal and by so doing give
YouTube users the privacy finger.
So when I spotted that
The Inquirer
was reporting how Google has started to roll out a new privacy feature
for Gmail users, well I just had to find out more.
To be honest, after the Viacom fiasco, Google could really do with
some good publicity with regards to user privacy. I think it might have
just got some. The trouble being it is only a very little bit of good
news and stands comparison to using a band aid to stem the blood flow
after your leg has been bitten off by a shark.
Anyway, the new privacy feature that Google has apparently started to
roll out allows users to see how many computers their account is
currently open on. What's more it enables them to then sign out
remotely.
As The Inquirer's Sylvie Barak says "This will be a fairly welcome
development because, until today, the only way to log out after
stupidly forgetting to properly log off on a public computer was to
change passwords."
Assuming, that is, the stupid user even knew that someone else was able to access their account from another computer of course. But it gets better. The real privacy interest is hidden deeper, and will let you snoop on
the snoopers reading your mail.
Read on to discover the how, what and where...
CONTINUES
LATEST HEADLINES FROM YOUR IT
