By DAVID K. LI
Last updated: 10:33 am
October 8, 2008
Posted: 4:34 am
October 8, 2008
Google wants e-mail users to back away from their keyboards after hitting the sauce.
A creative Google engineer - and admitted drunken e-mailer - unveiled a new gmail.com option that forces users to take an online sobriety test to unlock their e-mail accounts.
"Sometimes, I send messages I shouldn't," admitted Zurich, Switzerland-based engineer Jon Perlow in his Gmail blog.
"Like . . . the time I sent that late-night e-mail to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together."
Now, thanks to Perlow, drunken e-mails could end up in the recycling bin.
His feature forces users to answer five simple math questions in less than 60 second to log on.
Experts on e-mail manners said they appreciated Perlow's efforts, but doubt that many gmail.com users will actually regulate themselves.
"The only people I could see using this are those who have gotten into actual trouble doing this," said Cherie Kerr, founder of ExecuProv - a California consulting firm specializing in corporate culture and e-mail etiquette.
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