"User! Answer this question! Now!"
Our user generally doesn't really care about your new feature if they're logging in to check mail; they want to--wait for it--check their mail. Just like users everywhere, they're just going to click on a random button and not even be able to tell you five seconds later whether it said "Go Away" or "Reveal My Location To My Abusive Ex-Husband And All His Friends".
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Neither Gmail nor Yahoo are strictly email anymore. If you believe they are are, you're living in a fantasy world. Both have chat, and yahoo even has stuff like calendar and notes. "Webmail" isn't strictly email and it hasn't been for years.
"Reveal My Location To My Abusive Ex-Husband And All His Friends"
What all of the rabid people like you fail to realize is that no information was actually revealed to anyone in this instance. It was a combination of her misunderstand and a bug in google reader that displayed follower/following lists wrong.
Of course, none of you actually care about the facts, you just want to complain.