Google Plus, the social network (or whatever you call it) from Google has it’s own unique way for the users to follow others and contact them. Recently, there was a mail from Google saying that people who have circled you can send an email to you even if they didn’t know your email address. That’s quite crazy, for those who have been using these networks with anonymity and without any open ways of being contacted. Now, although Google did tell you that, there’s a way you can just try to turn this feature off. But let me explain what I am trying to tell here.
This is an email I am sending to another account of mine, which is not in my contacts but I have added it to my Circles. Now, while I am trying to send a mail, I type the name of the contact, and although there is no email associated, I am able to select the contact in Google+ because that user has set the option to receive mails from anyone on Google+. That is how it works.
To actually set the things up, you will have to go to your Gmail settings, because it is not Google plus, but your Gmail account at the receiver’s end. You can open the Gmail settings by clicking on the wrench icon on the top right side and in the dropdown list, clicking on “Settings”.
In the Settings section, you will see an option under “General”, saying:
Email via Google+: Who can email you via your Google+ profile?
There is a list of options under it:
- Anyone on Google+ – If you have an account on Google+, anyone who has added you in their circles can send you an email. This was the case in the above screenshot we shared.
- Extended circles – People in your circles, and in their circles too can send you an email (just like friends of friends in Facebook can message you if you had set that up).
- Circles – Here only the people who you have added in your circles, can mail you
- No one – This option is for those who cannot email you by any way via Google+, and they can do only if they had your email address.
Now, selecting one of these options is totally up to you. The option we suggest you is “Circles” because that would limit the contacts to the ones you have added in your circles, or else you will have to welcome mails from people you don’t know if you select one of the two options above this one.
So, that was pretty easy but should be handy for those who were already getting annoyed by the mails from people who were receiving mails from unknown people, and interestingly, they weren’t reaching the spam folder even if they had only promotional stuff. Privacy is one of the issues that people online keep facing, and this addition of feature of sending emails via Google Plus does raise a point of concern for many, thus this guide should be good enough for you to go back into the early days when even Google+ wasn’t there.
