Edit: Removed my original write-up to double-check something, lost the write-up, retyped a tl;dr version.<p>This is aimed at Enterprise, not individuals looking for a Signal-like messaging platform.<p>"Confidential" e-mail implementations already exist in many places. Plenty of messages need to be e-mailed but the contents can't be inlined due to compliance. eg, medical systems send e-mail updates that are just a plain message but the e-mail is just a link to an auth portal and behind that is the actual message. Not great user experience.<p>But here, is G-Mail already has Google-grade auth and the same auth as Google Vault, so the document can be stored in Vault and in the e-mail the link and payload itself can be automatically swapped when sending or receiving. Smother user experience. eg, vertical product integration.<p>This is clearly targeted at Enterprise (G Suite, plus half the questions are about compliance). By default, Apps users are able to <i>use</i> this feature, although it can be disabled at the domain level by admins. It is not the actual sending of e-mails in this manner that's the default.<p>Put another way: If you don't see the point of the feature, you aren't the target audience. It's not trying to be Signal.<p>I just don't smell anything nefarious here.<p>Disclaimer: Am Googler, but unrelated to the project. Just heard about it now and have enough experience in this area that the feature's context seemed clear to me.
What a shit show:<p>"When someone sends a confidential mode message, Gmail removes the message body and any attachments from the recipient's copy of the message. These are replaced with a link to the content. Gmail clients make the linked content appear as if it's part of the message. Third-party mail clients display a link in place of the content."<p>So it's neither confidential (google can read it), nor an email (as it's just an email containing a link to some google site).
Is this the beginning of the end of SMTP?<p>One thing the document doesn't address (unless I missed it) is whether a confidential message can be fetched using IMAP.