If you already have a Google+ account, which is a requirement to portray yourself as a victim of this feature, it's already possible for anyone else with a Goog

If you already have a Google+ account, which is a requirement to portray yourself as a victim of this feature, it's already possible for anyone else with a Google+ account to annoy you by sharing stuff directly with you, which with the default notification settings in Google+ will cause you to get an email. I don't see how today's feature is worse. Now, I see the opposite of what you see. Because my gmail address consist of just my name, and my name is common, I _already_ get loads and loads of mail destined for other people with my name. I find this annoying and I have no way to stop it. With this new feature, at least people who are using Gmail to compose their message will have a better chance of finding the right person, because the contacts in the composer show the profile picture from Google+. That means I will get less of this mail. It also means that the mail I do get will go to the "Social" tab of my Gmail inbox, which I don't even display by default, so it will be out of my face entirely. And, finally, I have a way to retaliate, because deleting their messages means those misguided people can never contact me via Google+ again. Nice. As for your other points I don't think they are even worth addressing. You aren't seriously proposing that Google should maintain separate account systems for Gmail, Google search, Google maps, Google+, Youtube, Docs and Drive, and every other product, are you? Can't you imaging the password maintenance/hijacking/support nightmare that would ensue?