New GMail Feature Helps Protect Privacy
Your email account can contain a lot of personal information, from bank alerts to various matters.Gmail added protection from unauthorized logins through new features allowing you to monitor usage and sign out remotely.
The features allow you to police your account from snooping family members, stalkers or those who take advantage when you forget to log out at your local internet cafe.
At the bottom of your email account, near where you would see the terms links and copyright information, is the addition of a line of text that alerts you to the last time your account was accessed and a notification indicating if there are any concurrent logins. Clicking on the “Details” link gives you the opportunity to turn the table and spy on the spys.
The monitoring function includes the ability to track user access by browser type, IP address, date and access type (POP3, Browser, Mobile). The “Sign out all other sessions” button, lays the smack down on infiltrating access and is destined to bring fear to the heart of stalkers everywhere.
Read more on Google’s Gmail blog. Google is in the process of rolling the feature out to all Gmail accounts in stages.
The feature would be great except that it doesn't work like its supposed to.
ReplyDeleteI use one and only one computer to access my Gmail account. I will also check my email multiple times a day because I have setup my other email accounts to forward to Gmail.
In the last couple of weeks, I have been continuously frustrated because I will login to Gmail, only to be logged out automatically, with the alert window stating:
"You have been signed out of this account."
"This may have happened automatically because another user signed in from the same browser. To continue using this account, you will need to sign in again. This is done to protect your account and to ensure the privacy of your information."
Hmm, that's funny because I am the only person to use this computer for well over 4 years.
Gmail has worked excellently for well over a year now, up until a couple of weeks ago. Now I see these posts about this NEW feature incorporated into Gmail.
Obviously this is recording IP Addresses of logged in users, but my IP address is the same this morning as it is this afternoon.
And the popup "Activity Information" window shows the same IP address for 5 time periods.