Google has introduced a new feature which it claims will make it easier for people to reach each other without actually knowing their email address and will allow them to communicate over email as long as they have a Gmail and Google+ account.
Announcing the new feature Gmail product manager David Nachum said in a blog post that a user’s Gmail contacts will be kept up to date and “Gmail will suggest your Google+ connections as recipients when you are composing a new email.”
Google claims that the new feature will be useful to users who have added each other on Google+ circles, but are yet to exchange their email addresses.
The search engine giant claims that your email address won’t be visible to the recipient of the email. “Your email address isn’t visible to a Google+ connection unless you send that person an email, and likewise, that person’s email address isn’t visible to you unless they send you an email”, notes Nachum.
Senders will be able to send out emails to any user without permission as long as they have them on one of their Google+ circle. Similarly recipients will email from anyone as long as they are on Google+; however, their email addresses will be hidden up until the recipient hits reply.
Concern is that if you navigate to General Settings section of your Gmail, you will find that the “Email via Google+” option is set to Anyone on Google+ by default. Privacy advocates are of the opinion that Google should have made the feature an “opt in,” rather than leaving it on by default for everyone.
Google on the other hand is saying that the new feature will not expose email addresses of users to strangers. The search engine giant claimed that emails from Google+ strangers will be treated differently and routed to a special section within the recipient’s mailbox. If a recipient doesn’t reply to the email, Gmail will block any future messages from that particular sender.