New Google feature tries to help users avoid embarrassing e-mail mistakes

Google Inc., owner of the world’s most popular Internet search engine, has added a feature to its Gmail program to alert users about wrongly directed e-mails.The Got the Wrong Bob? feature aims to save users the embarrassment of mixing up recipients, software engineer Ari Leichtberg and Yossi Matias, head of Google’s engineering center in Israel, said yesterday in a blog post.

The software tries to identify mistaken addressees before it’s too late, such as “hate mail about your boss to your boss’’ or “personal info to some random guy named Bob instead of Bob the HR rep?,’’ Leichtberg and Matias wrote.

The feature works by looking at groups that users e-mail most often and is activated only when the message is addressed to more than two people.

Google also changed the name of its “Suggest more recipients’’ feature to “Don’t forget Bob.’’

The related functions from Google Labs “just kind of went together better this way,’’ Leichtberg and Matias said.


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