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After last week's rant post, I will admit to having received a couple of Confidential Mode messages, but those were tests - many of people testing the tool for the first time (most people liked it). I am still wondering why we are not sending more of them and why so few people have heard of Confidential Mode, and would like to offer five hypotheses. And a sobering conclusion.
Hypothesis 1: The tool is not good
Hypothesis 1: The tool is not good
I agree that Confidential mode is not perfect. There are things about I do not like or that could have been solved differently. Why does it have those strange, rigid expiration times? Why do I have to set an expiration time at all, if I just want the message to be non-forwardable or have a passcode? Those are valid points. But let's be honest - these drawbacks are not terrible enough to make me quit confidential mode altogether and tell everybody to never use it.
Another major complaint is that if you fully delegate your mailbox, your delegates can send email in your name (including confidential mode messages) and can read confidential mode message sent from your account. That does not apply on the recipients' side: Their. Since 95% of the people I interact with do not have executive assistants that they delegate their inbox to, nobody but them can read their sent emails. Hypothesis rejected.
Final complaint: Google Vault administrators in your company can read the messages you send, just like they can investigate everything and everyone else. Confidential mode mails are not special to them. (Note that the confidential mode messages you sent cannot be read by the recipients' administrators, only by the recipient.) That is important, because otherwise your company would be liable for everything you do on their account without having control - from leaking data to criminal activity. Nobody should be naive: The risk is so great that where those tools are available, companies will deploy other monitoring and prevention tools without you knowing it. Companies MUST have insight into their IT. Hypothesis SOUNDLY rejected.
Hypothesis 2: People don't know about it
Hypothesis 2: People don't know about it
This can happen - the global Google team cannot translate all communications into all languages, print out announcements and hang them by your water cooler. We rely on the very capable change management teams from your territory to do that. Now, Confidential Mode may have been a case that has deliberately been played down, because it can be inconvenient. Or its importance not properly understood. Still, I think it is important enough that people would have found out! It is a new button in the interface after all. Every one of us uses this interface dozens of time a day to send emails, and nobody clicks it?
Hypothesis rejected.
Hypothesis 3: People have not found the right use cases
Hypothesis 3: People have not found the right use cases
Outright impossible, since the last post was about use cases and we all know every Google Workspace user reads every post here cover to cover. Hypothesis rejected.
Hypothesis 4: Convenience beats confidentiality
Hypothesis 4: Convenience beats confidentiality
Perhaps people know how Confidential Mode works, have tried it and been told that it is awfully inconvenient - like read receipts. I doubt that - I have never heard anybody talk about Confidential Mode, nobody has been "confidential-mode-shamed", there hasn't been talk about Confidential Mode emails that had to be resent because a partner refused to open them or changed their phone number. Convenience may beat confidentiality, but only insofar as people do not even bother.
Hypothesis rejected.
Hypothesis 5: People think they need it - but they really don't
Hypothesis 5: People think they need it - but they really don't
Confidential mode seems to be one of the "rite of passage" features that everybody complains about when they do not have it, but nobody uses when they get it. Like read receipts. Or multiple signatures. All of this gets you another point in a Gartner report and makes 1% of users really happy... But not much else.
And as it so happens, I think this is precisely what confidential mode is. Well done, elegant, ticks off all the boxes, but "meh".
Which, by the way, makes me step back and contemplate that not everything that can be built, should be built. There is a cost to even the simplest feature, which now must be maintained forever, compatibility tested against every future feature, for relatively low value added. This is how Notes and Outlook got big and clunky - one read receipt, one multiple signature, one confidential mode message at a time.
Hypothesis 6: Confidential mode is not an open standard
Hypothesis 6: Confidential mode is not an open standard
With a bit of hindsight, confidential mode probably failed to gain traction because it's a proprietary solution. It requires too much explaining and too much trust in the vendor (Google), leading to long posts like this.
In the realm of security, you put your cards on the table and let the facts speak for themselves.
Better solutions are coming to email encryption - if you disliked confidential mode, Google hasn't given up on you yet. Thanks for reading!
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