Managing Google Plus Privacy Settings [Google+]
Click here to view the Complete Google+ Setup Guide
What privacy settings do you need to worry about in Google Plus?
- Who can see you profile information and what information is available for them to see.
- Who can see your steam updates and how can you control it. Click here to skip to this section
Protecting Your Google+ Profile Information
- While in Google+, click on the dropdown with your name in the top right corner and select account settings:
- Click Profile and Privacy.
- Next to the Public profile information section, click Edit visibility on profile.
- Next to each profile item there is a globe icon that, when clicked, allows you to edit the visibility for that particular item:
- You regulate privacy by managing which Google+ “circles” are allowed to view each profile item. After clicking on the globe, click on the dropdown menu in the box that appears and select custom:
From here you have complete control over that particular profile item’s privacy settings. If you only want family to see your email then add all your family members to a circle called “Family” and in your email privacy settings, make sure that the only group that has access is your family group.
By doing this you can manage privacy settings for each profile item individually.
- How to Invite Friends to Google Plus
- How to Disable or Turn Off Email Notifications in Google Plus
- Google+ Keyboard Shortcuts
- Guide to Working with Circles in Google+
Managing Your Google+ Stream Updates
Your stream updates are managed in a similar way to your profile items. You can specify exactly which circles of friends, or even which individual friends, have access to each and every stream.
To post a stream update navigate to your Home tab and click in the text box where is says Stream:
Notice that you have an option to Add circles or people to share with…. Use that area to specify exactly who you want to be able to read that particular stream update.
You can also mention people in the same way that you can on Twitter. Use the @ symbol followed by their Google Plus name or their email address.
To verify that you have configured the privacy settings properly, make sure you learn how to view your profile as others see it in Google+.
You’re now ready to use Google+ and control who has access to what!
If you haven’t added your friends yet, check out my post on How to Invite Friends to Google Plus.
Additional Google+ Tutorials:
About Anson Alexander
Anson Alexander is a graduate from the University of Tampa with a degree in International Business and Information Systems.A previous IT Administrator for a medium size publication company, Anson has recently decided to work full time on his own business by publishing on AnsonAlex.com, publishing technology tutorials on YouTube and offering SEO, IT training and digital marketing services.His main interests include technology, social media, infographics, economics, marketing and web design.Connect with Anson on Google+.
If someone tags a photo of you, will that tagged photo be available to anyone? I understand that you are able to control who sees photos that you actually post, but am confused as to how you can limit access to any tagged photos (for example, I dont want anyone outside of my friends to see additional photos than my profile picture….).
Thanks!
If you go to account settings in google+ then go to photo settings, on the page that loads there is a part that allows the default action for photos that you are tagged in. Mine is set to my circles, so no one public can see what photos i'm tagged in.
Thanks, Sam! However, this is still unclear to me. Under Photos it says, "People whose tags of you are automatically approved to link to your Profile:" So you can control who can tag you in a photo and have it linked to your profile.
However, what I am concerned about is who else can view these photos. When you click on the Photos tab of the profile, it says "Albums in the Photos tab are visible only to people they've been shared with."
On facebook, you can specifically prevent access to tagged photos to those in your limited profile. According to the Google+ settings, you can control who can tag you in photos, but how do you actually control who can view them?
Thanks!
I have the same question as Mike. Doesn't seem to be a way to control who seems tagged photos. Perhaps this depends on whether the viewer has permissions to see who else is tagged in the photo?
The owner of a photo controls who can see. If they have it publicly facing, everyone in the world can see. YOU can control who tags you in photos.
If some random guys takes a picture of you and tries to tag you, he will only be able to if you're given him or a circle hes in, permission to tag you.
Obviously the picture is his so there is no way to Google+ to go through and find all pictures of you and notify you but you can control tagging.
There seems to be some confusion on this topic. I'm going to write a tutorial on it tonight.
Plus, how can you edit who sees your profile pic? It says available to the public but I am having trouble finding how to limit this. The clarity around Google+'s privacy settings are a major fail.
Your profile on Google+ is public. If you don't want people to see your profile photo you should remove the photo from the "Profile Photos" album or delete the photo entirely. I personally wouldn't put any images in my profile photos album that I'm not comfortable with the whole world seeing.
I think the fact that Google has so many aspects of the profile public by default is going to pose significant problems. I also find that this stance is counterintuitive to the image they are trying to promote with Google+: that you can better manage which circles access various aspects of your life. Facebook, in comparison, may not make it as easy to control who sees each post, but when it comes to things like profile pics and tagged photos, they win by a longshot with their detailed limited profile options.
But, to return to the tagged photos options, I see this as being a HUGE issue. From what I understand, Google+ enables you to select who you trust to tag you in photos (i.e only my friends can officially tag me in any photos that would appear on my profile), and allows you to select with whom you want to share an album. But, that isn't what I want control over. I want to be able to control who can view those tagged photos! It's great if my best friend tagged me at a party last weekend, and I know that anyone in his network could browse his photo album and see those pictures, but the fact that anyone who visits my profile could see those tagged photos (not just my friends) is problematic.
I understand that anything posted to the web is public in the longrun, but I appreciate that facebook doesn't make it so easy for random acquaintances or strangers to see every tagged photo, or even your profile picture if it's more casual. Am I the only one who finds this concerning?
Thanks for offering your insights, Anson!
Yes, the privacy settings seem to be set by the person uploading the picture. I have just tested this by viewing my profile as a friend who is not in any of the circles of someone who tagged me in a picture – the picture is not visible.
This seems to be an oversight by Google. Just because I trust someone to tag me in a picture doesn't mean I want to give them the right to decide who can see it. I am with Mike on this.
On Facebook if someone tags you in a photo, anybody that has access to see their photo (based on THEIR photo permissions, not YOURS) can see the tag.
It is the same in Google+, if someone tags you in a photo, anybody that has permissions to see that photo, can see the tag. Just like in Facebook.
The solution is to not allow people to tag you and then you can tag yourself in photos you want people to see…
This is true – but on Facebook you can define who can see tagged photos of you from your profile page. This is not the case for Google+.
Of course if someone was friends with the person that uploaded the photo they could still see it. But you at least have the option to hide tagged pictures from the photos page on your profile, independently of the uploader.
That is true, I'm not sure if you can control that or not on Google+. I think you can move the images into a "limited shared" album. I'll have to look into it a little more when I go to write that tutorial tonight.
I have a test Google+ account and it seems I can't hide 'Photos of you' pics to my circles or followers. Their visibility seems to be only linked with the privacy of the albums they were posted in.
This is really annoying because you would have to do two things if you receive a tag. 1. accept the tag and 2. look the albums privacy to see who is going to end up seeing your picture.
Another downside of this is that if the owner of the photo album you were tagged in changes the album privacy settings (e.g. to public) then your picture would be available to everybody without you noticing it!
If you guys know a way to solve this please let me know.
Thanks.
If someone tags you in a photo on Facebook and then makes the album public, everyone can see it then too… I don't really understand why you guys think this is anything different.
Again, I'm working on a very in depth tutorial on Google+ photos but for this particular situation, I see no difference between Facebook and Google.
The owner of the picture ultimately has control over it, regardless of who is or is not tagged in the photo.
Anson- like I and Adrian have been saying, there's a huge difference in that facebook doesn't make every single tagged photo available to everyone in the world via your profile. As Adrian reinforced:
"This is true – but on Facebook you can define who can see tagged photos of you from your profile page. This is not the case for Google+.
Of course if someone was friends with the person that uploaded the photo they could still see it. But you at least have the option to hide tagged pictures from the photos page on your profile, independently of the uploader."
Do you understand the difference, now? It's significant, and it's going to piss people off.
Okay I just did a test and I think I understand now…
I uploaded a photo to a friends account, made it public and tagged myself.
Now I have the option to untag myself if I want but if I don't, there is no other way to limit who can and cannot see it when viewing the photos tab on MY profile, regardless of whether or not people can see if from friends photo tab?
Is this the issue?
Hey guys,
I just want to say that I really appreciate the feedback you've given, even if it took me a while to wrap my head around it.
I just wrote a general article on photos in Google+ and I mentioned the tagging concerns that you guys brought up. Hopefully others are letting Google know too and they will make the proper changes.
Heres the link to the article: http://ansonalex.com/google-plus/google-plus-overview-of-photos-and-pictures-google-guide/
Thanks again,
Anson
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