<p>Google recently unveiled a feature that consolidates their products even further. Now you will receive an email in your Gmail inbox if someone sends a message to your Google Plus account, even if they don't know your email address.</p><p>Some peopleperhaps most peoplewill not want it to be easier for strangers to send messages to their email inbox, even if the stranger won't find out their actual email address. Yet Google has chosen to make this setting opt-out rather than opt-in; in other words, "Anyone on Google+" can by default send you an email (though this setting does have a feature where you have to agree to receive more than one message from a person you don't know). To top it off, the only people who will automatically get an enhanced privacy setting are users with large follower bases, such as celebrities.</p><p>Google Plus has for some time had a setting that lets you choose if you want others to be able to send you a personal private message. This feature, as potentially privacy invasive features should be, is completely opt-in. By default unchecked, users understoodwhether they had seen the setting or notthat they would not be getting personal private messages using the service. They were given, and the norm became, a more secure mode of privacy.</p><p>But now Google has opted them in automatically to this new, highly similar featurewhich is addressed on a completely different settings pagereversing the type of privacy users had come to know. The old setting is by default ineffective.</p><p><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/how-opt-out-gmails-google-plus-integration">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/01/13/google-apps-gets-new-email-via-google-feature-gmail-businesses-can-turn-admin-console/">Google Apps Gets New &#039;Email via Google+&#039; Feature in Gmail</a> (The Next Web)</p><p><a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116211/gmail-feature-raises-privacy-concerns-about-email">Your Email Address Isn&#039;t Personal Information. Get Over It.</a> (The New Republic)</p><p><a href="http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2322631/gmail-google-integration-leaves-more-questions-than-answers">Gmail&#039;s Google+ Integration Leaves More Questions Than Answers</a> (ClickZ)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=dWgGo8HI_hy8HYMsbo5ssFmXYYUaM&authuser=0&ned=us">90 additional articles.</a></p>