Google has shoehorned its underachieving social network Google+ into yet another Google service (after controversially linking YouTube's comments system with Google+), this time integrating Google+ with its ubiquitous email service, Gmail. 

Now, if you're part of the Mountain View giant's social network, you can email any Google+ contacts without actually knowing their email address. That works the same way with your email address, too. 

Google announced the new feature on its Gmail blog, where product manager David Nachum touted the service integration as a solution to this problem: "Have you ever started typing an email to someone only to realize halfway through the draft that you haven't actually exchanged email addresses?" 

This probably hasn't happened to a lot of people, but it's a good excuse to connect Google+ to more of your Google life, hopefully encouraging more people to use the social media network that will not die. Nachum notes that the Google+ integration is "an extension of some earlier improvements that keep Gmail contacts automatically up to date using Google+," so the recent further integration isn't completely shocking. 

The way Google integrated Google+ into Gmail is also simple, clever, and most importantly, relatively unobtrusive. Google added Plus connections into part of Gmail's auto-suggest contacts feature (in the "To:" line). But while you can send your email to Google+ connections, the auto-suggest won't show the sender what the recipient's email address actually is. Whoever is sending the email gives up their address, though.

Recipients, on the other hand, will only get Google+ related email messages in their Gmail account's "Social tab" if the sender isn't in their Google+ circles. Remember when Google reorganized Gmail into four tabs: Primary, Promotions (spam), Updates, and Social? Now we know what they were planning. 

On top of that, you can change your settings to opt out of the Google+ email feature -- an option you might consider if, like many Google+ accounts undoubtedly, you generally disregarded your account except for the occasional flippant circle-adding/accepting binge. Like all privacy-related changes to services, it would be nice if Google made it an "opt in" situation, as many people won't get the news of what's changed, but of course that rarely happens.

How to Opt Out

It's fairly easy to opt out of the Google+ Gmail integration though -- it's right there in the general settings of your email account. Here's a step-by-step

1. Log into your Gmail page on a web browser. 

2. Click on Settings, which looks like this:

3. Stay in "General Settings," which is the tab the menu opens on

4. About 8 options down, you'll find the "Email via Google+" setting, which you can set at "Anyone on Google+," "Extended circles" only, "Circles" (the people you have reached out to and vice/versa), or "No one," to completely shut it down, if this sounds like a bad deal to you.

Google says that the feature is rolling out over the next couple of days, and you should get an email informing you that your Google+ and Gmail accounts are now linked in this way.