Google's Building Package Tracking Right Into Your Gmail Inbox (theverge.com) 36
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google is adding package tracking features to Gmail, which should make it easier to see where your orders are at a glance while you scroll through your emails. In a blog post on Wednesday, the company says you'll start seeing "a simple, helpful view of your package tracking and delivery information right in your inbox" in the next few weeks.
Gmail will show you the delivery date on the list item for any shipping email, making it so you don't have to actually open the email and click a tracking link to figure out when you should expect the package. If you do go into the email, though, you'll see a card with more detailed info. At the moment, it seems as if the feature will be opt-in -- when it becomes available, you'll be able to turn it on from a notification that shows up in your inbox or through settings. Google says Gmail will also be able to notify you when a package has been delayed and bring the order email to the top of your inbox. That feature seems to be coming later, though, as the post says it'll roll out "in the coming months." Amazon products will not be compatible with the feature because their notification emails don't include tracking information. They also don't disclose what products have shipped.
A Google spokesperson told The Verge that the feature will be available "for participating merchants" and that "if a tracking number is not included in the merchant's order email, the package tracking feature won't be available."
Gmail will show you the delivery date on the list item for any shipping email, making it so you don't have to actually open the email and click a tracking link to figure out when you should expect the package. If you do go into the email, though, you'll see a card with more detailed info. At the moment, it seems as if the feature will be opt-in -- when it becomes available, you'll be able to turn it on from a notification that shows up in your inbox or through settings. Google says Gmail will also be able to notify you when a package has been delayed and bring the order email to the top of your inbox. That feature seems to be coming later, though, as the post says it'll roll out "in the coming months." Amazon products will not be compatible with the feature because their notification emails don't include tracking information. They also don't disclose what products have shipped.
A Google spokesperson told The Verge that the feature will be available "for participating merchants" and that "if a tracking number is not included in the merchant's order email, the package tracking feature won't be available."
Now only if you could track FedEx in Chrome (Score:1)
It doesn't work. I have to go to Safari to see FedEx tracking.
Re: (Score:2)
Will it work as effectively as bill tracking (Score:4, Insightful)
Long ago gmail put reminders x bill is due based off your gmail. It fails as it doesnt care if you pay the bill or not. I am constantly getting notices to pay x bill that i paid 2 weeks earlier. And it misses bills constantly.
Re:Will it work as effectively as bill tracking (Score:4, Insightful)
THIS ^ all these SAAS tools seem to want to try to manage my life for me all of a sudden but insist on doing so on an opt out rather than opt in basis or in the case of Google a "tough crap we're doing it" basis.
Never mind gmail does not know and has no way to know (so far and thank gwd) I have had scheduled bill pays setup at my bank for a decade. Which does not mean i don't want the e-mail invoice for records; but its extreamly unhelpful for Google to sit and generate additional spurious alerts for me to consider because their damn datamining/ml/ai crap thinks it knows something it doesn't.
Great, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Two questions.
First, do I want Google parsing and processing my mail? (full disclosure: no, and that's why I stopped using GMail).
Second, will this make spam mails more believable? I get a fair few good imitations of shipping notices. If Gmail makes them look even more legitimate, more people will be suckered.
tl;dr: Let people read their own mails.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Didn't Amazon specifically stop sending order details and tracking because Gmail was parsing/processing/mining that data?
Re:Great, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Several vendors have done that. Amazon has also made it really, really hard to access their tracking information without logging into your account in order to prevent creepy behaviour like this.
If I want everything I do monitored and commented on I'll ask my wife, I don't need Google doing a crappy error-prone second-rate job of the same thing.
Re: Great, but... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I do want that, it's why I'm using gmail. If I were trying to keep secrets, I wouldn't want them in unencrypted email. In fact, I want my package delivery dates on my google calendar.
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Yes, I agree. Recently my wife and I went on a road trip to the west coast. It was very helpful to have each hotel reservation appear on my calendar automatically. With a different hotel every night, I had worried that I might make a mistake on the reservation dates. But because Google put them on my calendar, I could easily see that I had made the reservations correctly. That also made it easy to pull them back up when it was time to check in.
Wasn't already a thing like 2 years ago (Score:3)
then it evaporate like must of the google new features .
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NO! THIS IS SO INNOVATIVE!!!! TO BE ABLE TO SEE TRACKING RIGHT BEFORE CLICKING AN EMAIL! NO PROGRAMMER IN THEIR RIGHT MIND COULD HAVE DEVELOPED THE REGEX NECESSARY TO DETECT TRACKING NUMBERS IN EMAILS, MAKE THE RIGHT API CALLS TO TRACK, THEN DISPLAY THE STATUS! IT'S NOT THAT EASY! THIS IS AN AMAZING THING! BUY GOOG!!!!! BUYYYYYYY!!!! (lol)
This is some text to trick the slashdot filter into not thinking I am yelling. Interesting that it does take some typing below the yelling or else it thinks it's yelling.
I'll definitely start relying on this service. (Score:3)
...aaaand it's gone.
Race for Relevance? (Score:3)
This sounds like a neat idea, until you think about it for a moment...
If you don't integrate with Amazon, then what's the point? I mean, I'd quite like to keep better track of my ebay purchases because Ebay's UI is so utterly horrible that I can't find the tracking information in there for the stuff I've bought. But I buy maybe one thing from Ebay for every 100 Amazon purchases. Other suppliers tend to fall into a similar bracket - their tracking isn't always great, but I do it so infrequently that it's not really a major concern (and likely Gmail won't support a lot of them anyway).
Then I start to think... there's no need to track Amazon's deliveries because Amazon already do a good job of it. The outstanding deliveries are (fairly) easy to find (not as easy as they could be, but not exactly hard). Amazon also seem to get deliveries out of the way so fast that tracking isn't really necessary in most cases.
So I'm wondering... what exactly is the point of this? It's a neat sounding thing for sure, but that's about all, or am I missing something?
Re: (Score:2)
It's so Google can track your buying behaviour, shipping behaviour, information about companies that do the shipping, etc, etc.
I wish I could say that's far fetched, but looking at everything Google has ever done, I'm fairly convinced that's the actual reason.
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I'd be curious to see what their legalese says about this particular feature, and whether it gives them even more rights to your mailbox than they already have.
meh (Score:2)
I've become not a fan of gmail and it's "features" and lack of privacy ... I'm migrating to a paid service ... Proton.
I'm not worried when Google scans my mails (Score:2)
I'm worried once they declare mail-scanning obsolete.
In Soviet Google ... ?? (Score:2)
In Soviet Google, it is totally the opposite!
UPS, FedEx, etc. already do this if you want it (Score:2)
When you set up a MyUPS account, for instance, then they'll start notifying you (usually via SMS) when they've been handed a package for you, what it's delivery status is, etc. Since they obviously need to know where a package is going, why not have them keep you apprised?
This move from TFS (which I could swear Google was already doing, years ago) is just another instance where Google is deceptively trying to make you think they're mining your emails for your benefit rather than for their paid customers. It
USPS sixteen days in Seattle? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
USPS has been getting throttled to death over the last few decades, regardless of who's in office.
Packages being stuck 'somewhere' for 3+ weeks is completely normal. And it gets even worse for international shipping.
Re: USPS sixteen days in Seattle? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
USPS used to be good and reliable. Hence my comment.
So now.... (Score:2)
Malicious tracking links (Score:2)
What if a tracking link in an email is malicious or or if contains a unique tracking ID which we ourselves would strip before following the link?
Permission to use data for tracking authentication (Score:2)
Most parcel tracking systems require a form of authentication after following a tracking link. Most commonly, they ask you to enter your order ID as well a part of your shipping address to confirm that you are indeed the genuine recipient of the package. This is done in order to stop a common order ID enumeration by malicious actors.
How does this align with modern data protection policies (such as GDPR) where users have to give companies an explicit consent to use their data? Surely, Google can't just assum
Re: (Score:2)
I've heard there was this thing on your browser, the "Do Not Track", if you set it, then Google can't show you where your parcels are or something!
What dont they spy on? (Score:2)
It's About Time (Score:2)
So... (Score:2)
Google *is* (still) scanning the contents of peoples' email ...
Not going to work (Score:1)