Embarrassment reducing new message notifications
The latest GoogleMail feature is :
Embarrassment reducing new message notifications "Ever replied to a message only to find out that someone sent a better, smarter reply right before you? Now, if someone sends a reply while you're in the middle of reading a conversation (or replying to it), you'll get a notification that a new message has arrived. Click "update conversation" to see what you’ve missed."
You see there are benefits in letting a third party such as Google have access to all your emails !