[Normal_gaussian]

> Things like unprintable email is a bad joke. Unprintable? What if I connect to Gmail with mutt? It gives the sense of a false security.

It also fundamentally breaks with what the user expects. The user expects their email to be theirs, to do with what they will. I know of no situation in which I would like an email which I specifically cannot print; I have no idea how I would explain it to my Grandfather.

[potatoyogurt]

It's not really about ordinary users like you. Google is shifting their strategy for Google Drive more towards enterprise, and this is a useful feature for enterprise users. Have you ever seen one of those email signatures stating "this email is property of XXX corporation, etc. etc." or seen an email sent to a large group of people in a company with strong exhortations not to send it anywhere else? This is a strict improvement over that. Yes, people can actively work around the printing restriction, so it's not 100% secure. But people were already using email for sensitive information, and this decreases the ways the information can get leaked from negligence or active subversion to just subversion.

[spookthesunset]

> Yes, people can actively work around the printing restriction, so it's not 100% secure.

And the people that do work around it in order to violate company policy can be dealt with here in meatspace.

Eg: HR -- "We didn't want you printing that sensitive email.... why did you go out of your way to print it?"

[Normal_gaussian]

And by doing so, it is still violating what the user expects.

[pmlnr]

e-MAIL. The stress is on the mail part. When your Grandfather sends a letter via post, he doesn't expect it to be his anymore, does he?

[Normal_gaussian]

No. He bloody well expects what comes through the door with his name on it to be his to do with as he pleases.

[Illniyar]

That's the other way around. The grandfather is the one receiving the email that he can't print.

[pmlnr]

I misunderstood the parent. Sorry, and you are right.