Gmail Plans to Allow Google Plus Users to Send Anyone an Email

January 12, 2014 Leave a comment

JANUARY 9, 2014, 10:25 PM

Gmail Plans to Allow Google Plus Users to Send Anyone an Email

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Google will soon allow people to send anyone an email, even if they do not have the person’s email address, as long as both people have a Gmail and Google Plus account.The change, which was announced Thursday and will be introduced over the next few days, was met with protest by some Gmail users, who said it opened the door to spam and unwanted solicitations in personal email inboxes, which are considered private.

Google said it would be useful for people who know one another but have not yet exchanged email addresses.

Senders can email anyone as long as they follow them on Google Plus, which they are able to do without permission. Recipients can receive email from anyone on Google Plus. Their email address only shows up, though, if they reply to the email.

The ability for anyone on Google Plus to email a Gmail user will be automatically turned on, requiring people to opt out if they do not want to be reachable. Gmail users can turn it off by visiting the General tab on the Gmail Settings page, where they can choose to receive email from anyone on Google Plus, people in their circles or extended circles or no one.

Google plans to send emails to Gmail users explaining the change before turning it on. Emails received from people outside a Google Plus user’s circles will be filtered into the social tab in Gmail. The default setting for business Gmail accounts is turned off.

The change, which more tightly integrates Gmail with Google Plus, is the latest move by Google to weave its social network into all of its products and to strongly push users to sign up for Google Plus. It comes on the heels of an uproar by many YouTube users after Google required people to join Google Plus to comment on YouTube videos.

Google has grappled before with the gulf between ideas conceived by engineers and the desires and concerns of its users.

For instance, the change is reminiscent of Buzz, the social network based on Gmail contacts that Google started in 2010. It was met with an uproar and was the subject of a Federal Trade Communications fine over privacyviolations, before being shut down.

Buzz, like the new Google Plus email feature, was turned on by default and required people to opt out if they did not want their Gmail inbox linked with a social network.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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