Dante D’Orazio for The Verge:
Once the service goes live over the next few days, a new setting will appear in Gmail called “Email via Google+.” If you don’t want everyone on Google+ to be able to send you an email, you’ll have to opt out by selecting “no one” or choosing another option to limit the feature to people in certain circles.
Stop it!
For Sale: privacy. Barely used. Make offer.
Oh god! you are using gmail… mhuahahhahaa and you are complaining hahahaha
If Google keeps making people worry about privacy, and pushes Google+ too hard, could Yahoo gain some traction with support from Apple?
So this will only upset people who do not receive any G+ notifications via email. Otherwise what’s the difference between this and a wall past or other G+ communication to your profile, about which you receive an email anyway? Its not like the person actually has your email address.
If you use Google’s services then this sort of thing comes with the territory.
I’ve had the same GMail account since it started when free, ISP-independent email seemed like a good thing. This is the end of me using that address. I’ll look for the same username at yahoo or even hotmail and somewhere more user friendly like hushmail.
I think they’ll have to reverse this and make it opt-in not opt-out but I’m done.
Well fuck yahoo too. They won’t let you sign up without giving them a mobile phone number.
Sure, have two factor authentication as an option, but don’t make it compulsory and don’t force me to give you my mobile number.
Why is anyone surprised by this? Google isn’t offering free email to the world out of the goodness of it’s heart. Facebook’s success has just forced Google to more aggressively leverage it’s resources, er…users. Any user of Google’s services should expect less and less ability to limit access to their endpoints (G+ stream, Gmail inbox, etc.). My personal favorite Google “accuracy by accident” phrase “Photos: your darkroom is now a Google data center”.
I’ve found this to be useful on at least one occasion when I needed to contact someone from an active Google+ community, but had no way of finding their email. Being able to send a message through Google+ meant that I could contact them without finding out what their email address was.
It seemed like a good way to make someone accessible without revealing their information, so it makes sense to me for it to be on by default. And if it becomes a problem, you can turn it off.
Google.
Stop teasing us and release those Google X-Ray specs NOW!
@matthewshettler:disqus
Firstly, isn’t “active Google+ community” and oxymoron? 😉
But seriously, as I understand this, it’s more than one G+ community user contacting another. It’s anyone with a Google account be it G+ or Gmail being able to start typing a name (picked at random) and having Google autocomplete it.
Facebook has had public contact info for a while, option to change it.
This isn’t required either. Just adjust your settings, done. Non-issue.
Opt-out is sleazy, no matter which company relies upon it.
I definitely agree it should be opt-in.
Yeah — Google never made any secret about how you pay them for Gmail.
This is straight out of the Microsoft Playbook. They are so desperate to get people to use their social network.
Isn’t this the same as Facebook? If you send a ‘friend’ a message, by default FB forwards it to your email. You have to switch this off to stop it. LinkedIn is the same. As I understand it, Google+ does not reveal your actual email address to the sender?
I got the email from Google about the feature. It isn’t bad at all and nothing more than a direct message to G+ built into Gmail. You don’t get to know their email [see screenshot below; top two are in the address book and bottom are connections].
The good thing is you can’t get spammed by folks.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/03kxmi7tsca8ric/Screenshot%202014-01-11%2000.11.48.png
Unless you’re aware of the need to opt out, It makes your email accessible to people you might not want to receive mail from.
I’d expect a tech nerd to say “it Isn’t bad at all,” but ordinary consumers are less likely to agree. It’s still a sleazy thing for Google to have made opt-out.
I’m not diminishing it just saying your email is never shared. It is literally just like a DM on Twitter but you can only be emailed once by a non-friend.