Google Wants Gmail in Search, Now Seeking Testers
Google is testing a new feature that will pull up Gmail information in search results.
Amit Singhal, SVP of Google Search, announced on Wednesday that the search engine giant is seeking out one million Gmail users to test a new search feature. Essentially Google is wanting to pull related information from the participant's emails, and add that data to search results on the main page.
"Sometimes the best answer to your question isn’t available on the public web -- it may be contained somewhere else, such as in your email," Singhal writes. "We think you shouldn’t have to be your own mini-search engine to find the most useful information—it should just work. A search is a search, and we want our results to be truly universal."
As an example, a user planning a biking trip to Tahoe might see relevant emails from friends about the best bike trails when searching "biking in Tahoe" on Google. The Gmail results will be listed on the right hand side of the results page. If it looks relevant, the user can expand the box to read the associated emails.
"We’re working on some even more useful features," Singhal added. "For example, if you search for [my flights] we will organize flight confirmation emails for any upcoming trips in a beautifully easy-to-read way right on the search results page."
Naturally this doesn't mean the emails will be up for everyone to read - consider it as a private, mini Gmail reader that essentially pulls up data similar to results from scanning email in the actual Gmail client. For now the trial is only accessible on https://www.google.com in English and for @gmail.com addresses (not available on Google Apps accounts).
To sign up for the trial, head here.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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Lan Ummm....No? I want my email to stay in my e-mail thank you very much. Is Google just BEGGING to be hacked again? *sigh*Reply -
punahou1 I can see a future glitch where their system ends up pulling data from another person's email. Time to remove my ex wife's hate mail. Oh wait, you can all have that...Reply -
Inferno1217 If they mean searching only YOUR email for data then I don't see a problem with it. The mini search could be very useful and save loads of time for people like me who keep everything organized. I have so many emails it is sometimes a chore to find what i'm looking for. If it was a public search, I could see so many issues with it.Reply -
Isn't this why there's already a search function in gmail itself? No need to make it global. This will not end well.Reply
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jacobdrj I like this. This feature makes sense if I am already logged into Google while searching. It is already linked to my email as it is. Let this come...Reply -
cookoy Agree with kjclouden. Use google to search the web, use gmail client search to search your email.Reply -
thrillhaus There's absolutely no way they'll make it search other people's email and show the results in your searches. It's going to pull from your email and your's alone.Reply -
freggo Never mind the fact that I do not use Gmail; the idea is not that bad but.Reply
However, when I look at my search patterns I rarely look for the same thing on the web and in my emails. It may be of interest to a small percentage of users, but for most it seems like a waste of resources.
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"There's absolutely no way they'll make it search other people's email and show the results in your searches. It's going to pull from your email and your's alone."Reply
Not on purpose, that is.
I'm done with Gmail. I'm tired of Google saving and archiving everything I do online. Based on your search patterns alone, Google knows where you are on any given day, who you bank with, what kind of medical issues you're searching for, problems you have, hobbies, interests, political views, etc.
And consider the data collection center built by the NSA in Utah (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/) and I just don't want to do business with any internet company that stores information about me. There are plenty of companies out there that make it a point not to keep records.