The Internet giant has unveiled a new feature designed to prevent users from the doing the cyber equivalent of "drunk-dialing," or in this case, "drunk emailing." It's called Mail Goggles.
Google developer Jon Perlow came up with Mail Goggles after a few late-night mishaps of his own.
"Sometimes I send messages I shouldn't send," he said. "Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together."
Here's how Mail Goggles works: Users opt into the feature, which by default is only active on weekends late at night. If a user tries to send an email during these times, Gmail will ask the user to solve a few simple math problems in a set amount of time. Once the user completes the problems, the message will go through.
Adult industry professionals reacted positively to the new gizmo, although very few admitted to actually sending drunk emails.
Big Sister Media VP of Marketing Carl "Carlos" Borowitz, VP Marketing told XBIZ that Mail Goggles technology might come in handy with technologies other than email.
"Not that I would ever stimulate my business email writing skills [with alcohol], but actually I believe we've all been there with our frequent board posting," he said.
Adult performer and talent manager Lisa Ann told XBIZ that although she's never sent a drunk email, she's sent plenty of drunk text messages.
A blogger on the social networking website SloshSpot.com joked that other online services could use Goggle technology, too, including phones, eBay, Skype, Twitter and Facebook.
But Q Boyer of TopBucks.com told XBIZ that he doubted the efficacy of Mail Goggles for a simple reason.
"I can still do math when I'm drunk," he said. "My brother in law once gave me the 'count backwards from 100 by 7s' test when I was so blotto I could hardly see, and I rifled through the countdown, no problem."
Boyer said that giving users to option to receive more difficult math problems might be the answer, but he added that some people might be beyond help.
"I'm guessing many of these same people who have a problem with drunk emailing send emails they later regret when they are sober, as well," he said.
