Google Drive users have repeatedly been asking Google for an option to prevent spamming over the past two years. Unfortunately, there has been an increase over the years in spamming and phishing cases. This is because spammers were able to share content with millions of users via email. This spammed content can lead to monetary loss and professional problems, such as explicit content being shared by professional drives.
Third-world countries were also experiencing the worst problems. Technological illiteracy was widespread in these countries, making it easy for scammers and phishing to target users in India’s most populous country. Google was also spurred to act quickly by the rapid spread of WhatsApp drive links as sources of hate crime and false information.
Google finally offers an option to block email addresses from sharing content with others to prevent misinformation, spamming, and phishing attempts. It was beta-tested in May but only recently reached a few devices. It will be available to all users within the next 14 days to curb spamming. This is due to the simple fact that you can block spam emails by tapping one button. But, users had hoped for more from Google in the two years that followed.
Google provided an alternative option that doesn’t stop spam but prevents spam from continuing, contrary to user requests. This update was not worthy of the two years Google spent developing it. Many tech experts expressed their concern in the terms.
Despite this update being available to all users and associated applications such as GSuite, it doesn’t address the problem of users not being able to recognize spam or misinformation and users not being technologically savvy enough to identify how they are being robbed. It also allows spammers to use a different email address to bypass the blocking. Google has also disabled the feature for the domains, allowing anyone to hack into a domain and make fraudulent claims without being notified. Parents raised concerns about the possibility of school domains being hacked and young children not understanding spam.
Google was asked to update the policy to include more practical options and tighten security regarding who can and cannot share content with email addresses. In addition, Google has been asked to use a spam folder, similar to Gmail, with an algorithm and AI presence to push the content.
