shouting loudly

The Inbox Lockout Problem

The New York Times has an interesting article about the problem of people getting locked out of their inboxes.

In particular, the article singles out Google, who don’t do much to help people get back in if they get locked out. Which is too bad; a few hundred call center reps would be a very small cost for such a mammoth ad revenue generator. Since their business model is built on throwing countless value-added applications at people and figuring out later how to monetize it, this is somewhat out of character.

The article does point out, though, a couple tips for the Gmail user. First, be sure to set up an alternate email address and a security question. Second, if you’re using Gmail for mission-critical communication, consider becoming a paying customer. For $50/year, you can become a Google Apps Premier Edition customer, which includes voice support for critical issues. Obviously, the former solution is much more practical for most people.