MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Gotta love Google. The search giant has embarked upon a new mission: making the electronic world safe for those who party a little too heartily.Mail Goggles, a new add-on designed to work with Google’s Gmail, was conceived to be a sort of “dead-man’s switch” to protect people from themselves. The software was created by Gmail engineer Jon Perlow (admittedly after suffering several blows to his dignity) to prevent “drunk emailing,” a modern version of the time-tested embarrassment of “drunk dialing.” After telling Gmail to incorporate the product, users specify dates and times during which they suspect they might be a little too happy — or too morose — to be contacting friends, family or even strangers.
Before the user can send that message declaring “I love you, man,” Mail Goggles requires him or her to take an electronic sobriety test delivered in the form of some basic math problems. Solve the equations and the mail will go through. Fail the test, and the software will store messages until you’ve sobered up.
“Hopefully Mail Goggles will prevent many of you out there from sending messages you wish you hadn’t,” Perlow wrote on the Gmail development blog. “Like that late night memo — I mean mission statement — to the entire firm.”
Now if Mothers Against Drunk Emailing would just insist Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social-networking sites to do something similar, the digital world would be a much safer — not to mention more intelligible — place.
