Programmatically change gmail status via OAuth or Authsub

Question

I would like my application to programmatically update my user's gmail/google talk status on their behalf but I dont want to store their password because of the privacy risk

Does anyone know if/how it is possible to use Oauth or some other form of authentication that does not require password storage.

The Google data api docs I have seen support a range of services but dont seem to support Google Talk/Gmail beyond the Google Contacts api.

The Google Talk API seems to explicitly state that username and password are required but I could be mistaken

If it helps, my application is built on App Engine so I can at least use the built in user class to determine their username and email without storing their password but this doesnt seem to give me access to the user's status

Any tips or pointers to apps/code that seems to accomplish this would be helpful. Thanks!

Answer 1

This may not be what you are looking for but it might be a step in the right direction for you.
"the Google Contacts Data API now supports OAuth."
http://groups.google.com/group/oauth/browse_thread/thread/75ee6d973930c791

The post says that "This is our first step towards OAuth enabling all Google Data APIs." And it's quite old so maybe they'll have information about the Gmail API.

Hope it helps.