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Scott Hardie | January 14, 2014
In recent days, there's been controversy over Google+ being further integrated into Gmail, in that people who know you on G+ can send a message to your email inbox. Predictably, people are outraged over this, because every slight change that Google makes provokes outrage, because that's the only response that the Internet seems to have any more. But I can't quite figure out the downside, other than maybe a few more undesirable messages, which are easy to filter out. Gmail even dumps them into a separate folder automatically, so you never even need to open that folder if you don't want this new kind of mail. Can someone help me make sense of what the problem is?

On the other hand, some people have a legitimate gripe with Google.

Samir Mehta | January 14, 2014
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Erik Bates | January 14, 2014
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Samir Mehta | January 14, 2014
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Scott Hardie | January 25, 2014
Excellent points.

About the ex-fiance, maybe this is unfair, but if his cruel and/or stalking behavior did indeed lead to a restraining order against him, then Google isn't the primary party at fault for his arrest.

About Gmail's new feature, wasn't there a similar controversy in Google showing who had put you into circles? On Facebook, you have to approve before someone can publicly say they're your friend, but on Google+, anyone can just drop you into their circles, and the site displays who has who in whose circles. A lot of people resent this perceived loss of control, and Google's response is that the analogy is falsely applied, that this is more like email in that anyone can put you into their email address book without your approval, which I think is a flawed analogy in its own right because whose email address book is publicly visible? Anyway, I think the biggest surprise is that it's 2014 and Google+ is still around.

Erik Bates | January 27, 2014
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