Want A Google Account? You May Need Your Mobile Phone Handy.

So you are looking for a Google Account, you’ve decided to try out Google Analytics on your site – you heard the hype and decided to see what’s what.

Trotting off to google.co.uk you select to create a new account, entering your current email information and generating a password. Then account verification begins and your met with an unexpected request – input a mobile phone number.

This SMS (text messaging) based account verification doesn’t happen every time for every user, but for the new users it does effect it can prove a potential problem. What if you don’t have a mobile phone? Google helpfully suggests asking a friend to use their number to receive the code, but goes on to say that the phone number is stored to ensure it is not being used to create a multitude of accounts. Quite how many accounts can be verified using the same number is not known.

This is clearly a step taken by Google to combat people using their services for nefarious uses such as spamming. However, it can present a potential problem for people without mobile phones, living in remote locations with poor reception, etc. It might be nice to see other elective options for people that don’t have the option of using a mobile phone; perhaps the verification email could ask the user to generate the code by solving simple mathematical equations.

Taking steps to stop spammers is obviously to everyone’s benefit, but perhaps giving some other verification options to users who are asked to supply a mobile phone number might help ease any problems.

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• Search The Human Body With Google Body Browser - December 21, 2010
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• Google Issues Security Email For Website Optimiser - December 7, 2010
• Google Launches AdWords Global Market Finder - December 7, 2010
• New Android Phone Promises A Pure Experience - December 7, 2010
• Google AdWords Wants Your Products! - December 3, 2010
• Know How Mobile Internet Affects Your Website? Google Analytics does… - December 2, 2010

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