Yeah, this is different to that screen that nags you for a mobile no, which you can click out of.
What's happening now is you can't actually complete registration for a new gmail account without giving them a mobile number. They say that each mobile number can only have a limited number of gmail accounts attached to it (didn't say how many). Its pretty much the same thing discussed on this old thread, but we've never had this issue in Australia before.
I had to join yahoo instead:(
PS. I tried adding secondary email account, and they still demanded the mobile number.
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