GMail spares wrong recipient blushes

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 14 Oct 2009 at 15:40

GMail Labs has introduced a new feature that aims to prevent people sending messages to the wrong person.

The so-called "Got The Wrong Bob?" feature scans through the list of recipients for your email and checks for duplicate names in your contact list. So, if you enter "Barry Collins" in the distribution list, but also have "Barry Manilow" in your address book, it will check to see if you've got the right one.

The feature has a couple of shortcomings: it only works on messages that are being sent to more than one person. The checking system is based on the groups of people you email most often. So, in the example above, it would only question Barry Manilow if you were sending an email to a group of PC Pro staff and had included the cheesy 80s singer in the distribution list by mistake.

If you're only sending the message to a single recipient it won't kick in, so this is no panacea for cads sending messages to their mistresses, for example.

A complementary feature called "Don't forget Bob" suggests people who may have been left of the list of potential recipients.

GMail users will need to click on the little green Labs icon to turn on the features.