Google’s new tool gives users greater control over incoming mail

26 Feb 2014

Google has empowered users who are not keen on the latest hot deals, or just like to keep their inbox nice, clean and uncluttered, with a new tool - a one-click unsubscribe link right next to the sender's address.

With this users would not have to locate the unsubscribe link and go through the 'are you sure you want to do this?' process. 

Earlier the link to unsubscribe was somewhat trickier to find, Gmail users can now easily locate and click the word to get off unwanted mailing lists.

The feature had been there with Google for a while, but the company recently rolled it out for all users.

The unsubscribe button debuted for millions of users on Monday and would continue to be roll out to other Gmail users through the rest of the week.

IDG had reported about the feature last week when Google announced the tool at an industry conference in San Francisco.

According to Googles' Vijay Eranti, leader of anti-abuse efforts at Gmail who spoke to IDG, one of the biggest problems with the Gmail spam filter was identifying unwanted mail or soft spam.

He said Google wanted to empower users with an easy to use tool, to control what they wanted to receive.

On the other hand, this would make it tougher for e-mail marketers to target customers with unsolicited offers, as they will no longer be able to send mass mails. 

However, the advantage to marketers is that the unsubscribe button meant that fewer emails would be tagged as spam.