This is stupid because all the spammer has to do is join (by being invited) and then invite themselves about 100 times (yes, you can invite yourself) to get loads of accounts for spamming.

So the SMS thing is just so Google can tell you about their SMS services.

And it doesn't work in the UK *sigh*

The sentence that really caught my eye in that entry was the following:

"We're also working on some new mobile features that will make your Google account more useful and secure, such as SMS alerts and password recovery."

I was imagining Google turning your phone into a Gmail pager: Mobile alerts when you have new

[cont.]...mail, when specific news topics have new entries, or maybe even when someone attempts to call you on Google Talk while AFK. ..at least, just a thought.

Yeah they actually go into more detail on that in a help article. I can't imagine it being free though

SMS text notification of new e-mail messages is free on Yahoo and Hotmail, so why not GMail?