Block chat functionality in mail.google.com or gmail.com

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• ProxySG Software - SGOS

Issue/Introduction

You want to know how to block the chat functionality in mail.google.com or gmail.com
How do I block the Google Chat or Google Talk functionality within gmail.com?

Resolution

It is possible to block the chat functionality within Google's web mail application. This solution only refers to blocking this method of chat. It does not block chat from the Google Talk stand alone application.

Please note that you need to be doing SSL interception for this solution to work

Please do the following steps:

1. Launch the Management Console. Go into the Configuration tab. Click on Policy > Visual Policy Manager (VPM) > Launch
2. Add a Web Access Layer within the VPM. You can name it BlockGmailWebChat, or something that is descriptive for you and your organization.
3. Create a new rule within that newly created layer. The source is equal to Any. Right click on Destination and click on "set". Click on "New" > "Destination Host/Port" Enter chatenabled.mail.google.com and you can use "Exact Match" or "Contains" for how to match the name. Create another object for clients6.google PATH: /chat/.  Click OK several times. Service = any, time = any, Action = Deny, Track = none.
4. Click on the Install policy to install the newly created policy

NOTE: You may want to test this policy prior to rolling it out corporate wide. The Gmail chat tool will give the following warning after chatenabled.mail.google.com has been denied:

"Your internet connection is experiencing problems or your network administrator has blocked Gmail chat."