Google on Wednesday ramped up privacy controls in a Gmail overhaul, aiming first at businesses that use its suite of workplace tools hosted in the internet cloud.

The “all-new” Gmail is available to the more than four million businesses that pay for G Suite services.

People who use the email service personally for free can opt-in by making the choice in settings, vice president of product management David Thacker said in a blog post.

Revamped Gmail has “a brand new look on the web, advanced security features, new applications of Google's artificial intelligence and even more integrations with other G Suite apps,” according to Thacker.

A confidential mode added to Gmail promises to let people sending messages set expiration dates and block them from being forwarded, copied, downloaded or printed. Messages can be revoked after being sent, Thacker said.

Senders of mail can also require that a code delivered by text message be entered before an email can be viewed, in an added layer of security.

“Because you can require additional authentication via text message to view an email, it's also possible to protect data even if a recipient's email account has been hijacked while the message is active,” Thacker said.

The confidential mode will begin to roll out to personal Gmail users and a limited number of G Suite customers in coming weeks, according to Google.

Artificial intelligence is being put to work in new Gmail features including “nudging” people to tend to neglected messages and automated reply suggestions along the lines of those added to a mobile version of the email service last year.

“Gmail can also recommend when to unsubscribe from mailing lists,” Thacker said.

“Using intelligence, unsubscribe suggestions appear based on cues like how many emails you get from a sender and how many of them you actually read.” Google and rival technology titans such as Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft have followed people into the internet cloud with services, digital content, and software hosted online at data centers but accessed from the gamut of devices.

Opinion

Editorial

Digital growth
Updated 25 Apr, 2024

Digital growth

Democratising digital development will catalyse a rapid, if not immediate, improvement in human development indicators for the underserved segments of the Pakistani citizenry.
Nikah rights
25 Apr, 2024

Nikah rights

THE Supreme Court recently delivered a judgement championing the rights of women within a marriage. The ruling...
Campus crackdowns
25 Apr, 2024

Campus crackdowns

WHILE most Western governments have either been gladly facilitating Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, or meekly...
Ties with Tehran
Updated 24 Apr, 2024

Ties with Tehran

Tomorrow, if ties between Washington and Beijing nosedive, and the US asks Pakistan to reconsider CPEC, will we comply?
Working together
24 Apr, 2024

Working together

PAKISTAN’S democracy seems adrift, and no one understands this better than our politicians. The system has gone...
Farmers’ anxiety
24 Apr, 2024

Farmers’ anxiety

WHEAT prices in Punjab have plummeted far below the minimum support price owing to a bumper harvest, reckless...