Unsubscribing from e-mail can be a tricky process—at least, far more tricky than subscribing, which it seems most of us could do in our sleep. Google appears newly sensitive to this problem and has added a new "unsubscribe" button to its Gmail interface as a countermeasure against spam.

Of all the options in Gmail's new tab interface, the Promotions tab is the most likely of all to be a cesspool of e-mails you never wanted and would prefer not to receive anymore. The tab highlights all of the retail newsletters and "partner updates" you receive from being inattentive enough to not uncheck the "please send me e-mails" box when filling out an online form with your e-mail address, making it easy to see how much space is wasted on promos.

Google's new button is an improvement upon a feature that has existed since 2009, where Gmail would offer to try to unsubscribe a user from e-mails they reported as spam. Since there's not a lot of clarity around the unsubscribe process, these attempts can be hit-or-miss.

Worse, reporting a non-spammer for spam creates longer-term problems for companies. IT World reports that mass-reports of "spam" sent from a "legitimate" party can "in the long run… cause delivery problems for all of the company's e-mails."

Now Google enables users to skip straight to the unsubscribe step, separating out the spam-reporting process. Unfortunately, to access the button, users have to open the e-mail first. The only real time savings come from not having to track down the minuscule, invariably ash-gray "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the e-mail.