New Gmail Accounts Require SMS Verification to Sign-up; Google Accounts Password Reset via SMS Now World-Wide

Some people report that Gmail started to require SMS verification when you create an account, a practice used in the US and other countries when Gmail wasn't publicly available worldwide.

If you'd like to sign up for a Gmail address, you need to have a mobile phone that has text-messaging capabilities. If you don't have a phone, you may want to ask a friend if you can use his or her number to receive a code. Also, if you know someone who already has a Gmail address, you can ask them to email an invitation to you. One of the reasons we're offering this new way to sign up for Gmail is to help protect our users and combat abuse. Spam and abuse protection are two things we take very seriously, and our users have been very happy with the small amount of spam they've received in Gmail

explains Google.

This doesn't seem to occur for everyone yet so we'll have to wait for an official statement from Google.

In other news, the option that lets you reset the password of a Google Account by SMS is now available world-wide:

Since most people use cell phones these days, we decided text messaging would be an easy, convenient addition to our password recovery options. To set up password recovery via your mobile phone, just sign in to your account and click Change Password Recovery Options. Enter your mobile phone number and current password and then click Save. If you lose access to your account for any reason, you'll be able to regain access by entering a code we'll send in a text message

Google also updated the password recovery settings page to include all the account-recovery options: secondary email addresses, text messages and the security question.

[via googlesystem]